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

One thing that can totally build a café or restaurant is having its own signature touch, be it a special dish or a unique drink or even a memorable theme. With Papparoti, it’s the signature coffee-coated buns that most customers remember.

Opening up in SODIC's pristine Westown Hub, Papparoti offers both indoor and outdoor seating. Opting for a table outdoors, our waiter was quick to seat us and eager to place menus before us in no time. With the venue being quite crowded at the time of our visit, the tables and chairs felt almost glued to each other and the overall atmosphere was a bit too constricting.

The menu opens up to a “Pappa Combo” section offering caffeinated drinks, the likes of Cappuccino,  flavoured tea and Café Latte, and non-caffeinated drinks, the likes of Iced Chocolate and different fruit smoothies, accompanied by the signature bun (27-43LE). You can also order the drinks or the buns separately. Some of the other appealing drinks were Pappa Black Tea (15LE), the Pappa Choco Shot (25 LE) and the Espresso Macchiatto (21LE).

With no food offerings but the bun, Papproti offers the option of customizing your bun and adding some toppings to it, the likes of chocolate, honey, nuts, caramel or even cheese.

Feeling like a round of refreshingly icy drinks, we opted for the Iced Special Blend Coffee (27LE), the Mango Smoothie (25LE) and the Strawberry Smoothie (25LE). Ten minutes later, our drinks were served up alongside two complimentary hot buns.

The Iced Special Blend Coffee was nothing like the waiter had described it to us, far too sweet and lacking a strong taste of coffee. It tasted more like caramelized water than a coffee-based drink. The same can be said for the Strawberry smoothie for it was chockfull of sugar. The Mango smoothie, however, was perfect, tasting like freshly blended mangoes.

The hot buns were served fresh out of the oven and were quite unfamiliar to our taste buds, tasting like sweet, buttered bread that is ever so slightly coated in coffee and caramel.

All in all, Papproti was quite the peculiar mixture of efficient service, hit-and-miss drinks and an enviably located yet cluttered venue. Though the buns and the mango smoothie were quite delicious, the strawberry smoothie and iced coffee blend failed to impress.