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

Located at the fancy-schmancy First Mall in Giza, The Four Seasons First Residence’s own spin on the traditional Ramadan tent, La Gourmandise, has become a pillar of Cairo’s love for the kheima.

With rumours in the run-up to Ramadan suggesting that restaurant and hotels would increase their Ramadan prices exponentially in the wake of the hot mess that is Egypt’s economy, La Gourmandise’s offer of a lavish fetar buffet for 425LE++ didn’t seem like a bad option.

The atmosphere of La Gourmanidise is rather hushed; maybe a little too hushed, in fact. With no music playing throughout the meal, the background track was a cacophony of chatter and cutlery-clinking echoing up to the high ceiling of the mall. This is possibly La Gourmandise’s biggest drawback; while it does well to create a unique palate and aesthetic, you can’t help but be ever-so slightly jolted when you briefly catch a big, red ‘sale’ sign on one of the shop windows in the corner of your eye – which is why we recommend you sit facing into the centre where the buffet is.

At first glance, said buffet doesn’t look like it provides anything out of the norm. There are salads, proteins, desserts and dips all the Ramadan trimmings – everything you’d expect of a fetar buffet. Once you wade up the steps, however, you’ll find that there’s more than meets the eye.

First of all, there’s great news for the carnivorous – the grilled meats and carving station knock the ball out of the park. Everything, from kofta to chicken, is cooked, seasoned and spiced perfectly. The trick to securing a monstrously meaty meal, however, is in timing. While the staff and kitchen do well to keep the food heated, some of the foods quickly lose that delicious, fresh-off-the-grill quality.

The other area in which La Gourmandise’s buffet shines is in the often overlooked salads. Traditional dishes like hummus and baba ghanough were well made and kept at a nice chill, but it’s the non-Ramadan items like a delicious and deep-flavoured cold moussaka salad and beetroot-marinated sashimi-style salmon that really impressed.

Also worth noting is the deliciously chunky and crisp sambousak, the fresh bead which is primed for lots of dipping and the shawerma station. The latter provides a great option and is made on-the-spot to your request. But if you want to take our advice, be careful; so hearty and packed with delicious and fresh ingredients is the shawerma, that it leaves very little space in your stomach – and this is, after all, a buffet, where going for seconds or thirds (maybe even fourths if you’re feeling particularly hungry) is the done thing.

After a button-popping meal, we indulged in a cup of tea with mint, which we weren’t charged for, so we assume it comes as part of the buffet price. What we did have to pay for, however, was the shisha. For 85LE a pop, we decided that we were well within our right to expect something top-shelf – and that’s exactly what we got. One (superficial) sign of a good shisha is the thickness of the smoke and, in this instance, we quickly built a fruity-smelling cascade of pearl white clouds around our table. In layman’s terms, it was very, very good indeed and provided a nice oral-fixation while we slowly digested.

It was soon short-lived, however, as at no later than 8.10PM, we were told that we had hit last order time, which didn’t seem to sit well with much of the rest of the diners, who quickly decreased in number quickly after. Guests are welcome to stay, but with the space quickly becoming empty, it didn’t make for an inviting atmosphere.

It all went a bit flat, which positions La Gourmandise’s fetar buffet as the kind of option to choose when looking for delicious, wholesome Ramadan dining in an unfussy, no-frills set-up.