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

Featured images by Nelly Ezz

SODIC West Town Hub has been a regular hang out for both Beverly Hills and Sheikh Zayed residents alike. The area brims with restaurants and cafés that suit everyone’s mood and taste; from coffee shops and burger joints to pizzerias and specialised cuisine. Among all these places, we found Oliveto – an Italian restaurant that has another branch in New Cairo.

It was almost 2 o’clock in the afternoon, but we were in the mood for a late breakfast, or should we say brunch. We sat at Oliveto and asked the waiter if they can still serve us items from the breakfast menu, and thankfully, they agreed. We got the menus and began to discuss our choices. Oliveto’s breakfast selection looked delightful; filled with waffles, breakfast pizza, eggs, and even calzone! We were hungry, so we skipped beverages and ordered food straight away. First, we opted for an appetiser from the regular menu, the Bruschetta (70LE) – 3 pieces of garlic ciabatta, topped with tomato, red onion, basil pesto, shrimp, and mozzarella. This starter had one flaw – too much oil. Each piece had a different topping; one with tomato and cheese, one with pesto, and one with pesto and shrimp – the ingredients tasted fresh, but the bread was soaked in olive oil, and the toppings lacked seasoning.

Soon after, we ordered our mains; we got one Vegetable Egg Frittata (99LE) – served with a side of Italian sausage and wedges. The frittata clearly had fresh veggies, but yet again, it needed seasoning, while the sides were just too oily. The wedges obviously needed more time on a napkin for the excess oil to drain, and the sausages were, unfortunately, tasteless, greasy, and only topped with a dry herb.

Our second dish was the Nutella Calzone; the waiter told us they were out of Nutella, but said that they had dark chocolate that they play as a substitute – we agreed to that and ordered it. As our meal got to an end with this last dish, we found a plate of Nutella Crepe in front of us. The waiter said he brought the Nutella especially for us and claimed that we ordered crepe – clearly that was far from the truth; we know what we ordered, however, we decided to let it slide. The Nutella crepe (90LE) – was oddly shredded into thin pieces, but was pleasingly drenched in Nutella; we finished it and called it a day.

Our visit to Oliveto was mediocre; the mishaps that happened were repetitive. It was a matter of adding more seasoning and putting less oil; it was a recurrent issue, yet, could be easily corrected. The calzone/crepe incident was an enigma for us, but it was a misunderstanding. Oliveto announced its breakfast menu mid-December 2019, so maybe it’s that period where mistakes happen in the kitchen until everything is perfected.