An Evening in Antiquity
OUR 2025 winter/spring dinner series transports us to Cairo, a city at the crossroads of civilization whose ancient past, modern history, and timelessness inspired us to create an event floating in time. From the grandeur and mystery of Ancient Egypt, to the country’s rich Ottoman Period, to the romantic appeal of Egypt’s Golden Age in the 19th and early 20th century, we wanted to share some of what animates this event and serves as the inspiration for An Evening in Antiquity: A Taste of Cairo in Five Courses.
In a country with millennia of history, we selected a few pivotal moments in time that felt particularly compelling as we crafted our menu for this evening. And so, we romanticized—we imagined attending an Ancient Egyptian feast, receiving an invitation to dinner in a Medieval Ottoman palace in Cairo, or being a guest of the Khedive at the inauguration of the Suez Canal. What tastes and sights would we take in? What memories would be established and evoked?
Our first source of inspiration was Ancient Egypt. We incorporated elements significant to Ancient Egyptian cuisine—dates and honeycomb, sesame, pomegranate, parsley and mint—in our menu, designed to provide a portal into the tastes of this ancient land. Tomb paintings depict the central role these and other staples played in Ancient Egyptian life. Food was vividly portrayed, as was the celebration of it, with tomb paintings carefully documenting the rituals of sowing, harvesting, and feasting.
North Side of West Wall of Nakht's Offering Chapel, ca. 1410–1370 B.C.
Gathering Honey, Tomb of Rekhmire ca. 1479–1425 B.C.
Winemaking, Tomb of Ipuy, ca. 1279 –1213 B.C.
Date Palms, Tomb of Sennedjem, ca. 1295–1213 B.C.
Two thousand years later, we find ourselves in Medieval Cairo. By now, the Arab conquests have profoundly shaped society and created a layered fusion of culture and food resting on the millenia’s old Ancient Egyptian foundation. In the 10th century, Cairo was established as the capital of the Fatimid Empire. A large influx of immigrants and an increase in trade saw the introduction of new crops and foods—including eggplant, also featured on our menu. Cairo was now a city in motion, brimming with an energized populace and new ideas, which resulted in advancements in the arts and sciences, in astronomy, medicine, and architecture.
David Roberts, The Bazaar of the Coppersmiths, Cairo, 1842 depicts a street in the heart of Fatimid Cairo
By the 1500s, Egypt was ruled by the Ottoman Empire. We catch a glimpse into the traditional homes and courtyards that have housed centuries of human stories, of gatherings, of traditions, and of food marking moments both pivotal and mundane. Beit al Suhaymi, built in 1648, is one of these places that ignited the spark of our imagination in designing this dinner series. Remarkably well-preserved, Beit al Suhaymi provides a living example of a home in Ottoman Cairo, with its traditional mashrabeyya wood paneling, tile work, public and private living spaces, and gardens. Once inside, visitors are immediately transported to life in another era of Cairo’s history.
Because the Ottoman Period brought with it an exchange of foods and flavors and of cooking techniques between Egypt and the Ottoman Empire, including Levantine cuisine, we could expect to be served dishes at the intersection of these cuisines. Our fourth course—a Syrian fettah—pays homage to this rich interweaving of culinary culture and the lasting impacts it has made on Cairene cuisine.
Moving yet again in time, we come to the early 19th century. While the Napoleonic campaign resulted in failure—a brief occupation from 1798 to 1801—it succeeded in laying the foundation for an enormous surge of scholarship on Egypt. Bringing with him a group of scientists, artists, philosophers and scholars known as the Savants, supported by a few thousand technicians, Napoleon was intent on studying Egypt and unlocking its great mysteries.
This investment resulted in the publication of Description de l'Égypte in 1809, an encyclopedic compendium of scholarship on every aspect of Egyptian life as studied by the Savants. The Napoleonic conquest also led to the discovery of the Rosetta Stone in 1799, leading the way to its eventual translation in 1822 by Jean-François Champollion, which enabled the understanding of the scripts used in Ancient Egypt tombs. With this, Egyptomania was introduced in the West, establishing in hearts and minds fascination and fantasy for this ancient culture, whose veil was now lifted.
Over the course of the 19th century, the European fascination with Egypt continued. Commissioned by the Egyptian Khedive Ismail for the inauguration of the Suez Canal, Giuseppe Verdi’s opera Aida reflects this zeitgeist. Still today, it remains one of the enduring cultural touchpoints that speaks to the romanticization of this ancient civilization in modern imaginations. We drew inspiration for our dining room decor from Aida’s set and costumes, designed by the Egyptologist Auguste Mariette for the opera’s 1871 Cairo premier.
The exterior of the Khedivial Opera House, built for the inauguration of the Suez Canal
The interior of the Khedivial Opera
We end our odyssey in the early 20th century, when Cairo was one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world, and an oasis of peace and prosperity in contrast to wartime Europe. The beating heart of the city’s contemporary scene was the iconic Shepheard’s Hotel, whose terrace, grand dining room, and bar provided a glamorous backdrop for a trans-continental assemblage of notable guests. Describing the terrace, the hotel brochure mused, “the rendez-vous of all the greatest writers, explorers, politicians, and notables of every nation for the past forty years.”
A view into the Shepheard’s Hotel in 1951 from Eugene Castle’s "Land of the Pyramids"
A 1942 Life Magazine excerpt reads, “The well-to-do British officers in Egypt, the ambassadors with letters plenipotentiary, the Americans with fat purses, the glamor girls of the Middle East, the Russian commissars, the famous war correspondents and the civilian tank experts, all stay at just one hotel in Cairo: Shepheard’s. When the war in the desert went really badly, a favorite criticism back home was that it was being fought from the terrace at Shepheard’s.” Significantly, the hotel played an important role for the British during World War II. As did its Long Bar, and its legendary barman Joe Scialom, who inspired our cocktail offering for the evening, which we will be sharing more about in the time to come.
A Life Magazine feature on the Shepheard, 1942
Joe Scialom at the Long Bar
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Today, Cairo remains a city of infinite intrigue, of mysteries still hidden, of crumbling splendor. It tells a story of the march of the human spirit in space and time. Thousands of years of layered history, of conquests and colonization, have etched indelible imprints on the city’s culture, architecture and cuisine. Our hope was to capture some of Cairo’s dynamic essence, of its unique magic, and translate that into an evening that provides a portal through which to view Cairo in its color and complexity. We would be honored if you join us for An Evening in Antiquity.