The Definitive Guide to Living in the Capital , Cairo , Egypt

Ever since we were little kids, there’s been a spot on Michel Bakhoum Street in Dokki that has seen a whole string of restaurants and cafes open, only for them to close one after the other. Most recently, it was vacated, but is now home to new restaurant and café, Chicago. We decided to give it a try and see if it has potential to survive or fall just like The Avenue, El-Sofra and the rest.

From the outside, the venue looks rather cool, in that the huge windows make everything so airy and visible. On the inside, however, it’s more of a generic café with a vague décor theme and identity. One would assume that the black and white skyscraper posters and the cartoonish mafia-boss cartoon on the cover of the menu are meant to reference to Chicago gangsters like Al Capone and Mickey Cohen, but it all seems really dated.  

Never ones to judge a book by its cover, we began with the Nacho Grilled Chicken (100LE) as an appetiser. The dish was just plain tortilla chips sprinkled with a little bit of shredded cheddar, red beans, very cold and bland grilled chicken cubes, and very stiff sour cream on top – and all this for a ridiculous price of 100LE.

Things didn’t get any better with the mains. We opted for the Twisted Mac Chicken and Cheese (95LE) which came in form of a bowl of bland macaroni that had no cheese or sauce, topped with grilled chicken that lacked any remarkable flavours. The only thing was good in this dish was the oversized garlic bread.

The Al Capone Burger (99LE), meanwhile, was like homemade burger – but not the good kind. The patty was incredibly dry and it had a stiff-shelled texture to it, while the one single onion ring and scant amount of bacon or cheese only made things worse.

The last main we tried was the Fillet Steak Sandwich’ (95LE), which, actually, wasn’t a complete disaster. The sandwich was generously filled with a mix of thin slices of beef, sautéed peppers, mushrooms and onions. The combination had fajita-like flavours and the melted mozzarella on top just made the presentation more appealing. It was a good sandwich for a cafe.

We finished our meal with a Carrot Cake (49LE). Served with stretchy and refreshing mango gelato, the cake was slightly dry and the frosting was a bit too sweet. However, the carrot cake and mango gelato matchmaking worked, surprisingly, though the bed of granulated sugar below the gelato confused us and actually annoyed us while eating the gelato.

The dessert was possibly the only interesting item on what is otherwise a pretty uncreative menu. Despite the staff being really helpful and the service overall being good, there was little to bring us back considering the disappointing food, the high prices and just the general generic feel of the place.