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

Let’s start off with a bit of controversy: Lebanese food is better than Egyptian – gasp! Call us traitors, but it’s just a fact. One of the main instigators in this act of culinary traitorousness over the last few years has been Tamara Lebanese Bistro.  As one of the most popular Lebanese restaurants in Cairo, Tamara’s key to success has been an intangible balance of casual and fine dining that it’s managed to strike – all the wholesomeness of Levantine food, but with a more refined touch.

This week, however, Tamara is set to launch a whole new concept that leans a little more to the casual: Elna. More than just an extension of the Tamara name, Elna is set to arrive at New Cairo’s Point 90 Mall with a unique new menu that fuses the best of Lebanese with some of the more contemporary foods and cuisines of today – there’s a delicious-sounding, guilt-free Lebanese-tinted quinoa salad on the menu, for example.

Like every younger sibling, the blueprints of its older sibling are there, but the new addition to the family very much has its own identity, catering to Cairo’s young and restless.

While words like ‘cool’, ‘hip’ and ‘trendy’ are actually, well, rather un-cool, pretty un-hip and ever so un-trendy, Elna is letting the food do the talking with a menu that promises to take on the traditional and the modern in one creative swoop – something that Cairo will get a little taste of at the grand opening on Wednesday 16 November.

Starting nice and early at 2PM, invitees will not only get the chance to dive into the menu, but will also be serenaded by two of the coolest, hippest and trendiest local acts in Cairo: dreamy, swoon-inducing singer-songwriter, Hassan Ramzy, and off-the-wall rockers, Bluezophrenia. The day’s entertainment will also feature two caricature artists.

Elna comes as the latest venture by the growing Mori Co, who have been responsible for some of Cairo’s other food trendsetters, Mori Sushi, Mince and Ted’s.

More importantly though, Lebanese food is better than Egyptian food. For proof, stay tuned to Elna on Facebook and Instagram.