-
Absolute
If you can get past the door bitches (and we use the expression with feeling), you'll have a good time here. This is where Cairo's young and beautiful come to party. There's a big dance floor, a good DJ and a delicious sushi menu. Bookings are advisable.
-
Aristocrat
In Zamalek, Aristocrat is a mellow pool hall that doubles as a bar and restaurant.
-
Ash-Shams
Decorated with gilt stucco and kitschy faux-classical paintings, this colourful ahwa , in the courtyard alleyway between Sharia 26th of July and Tawfiqiyya Souq in Downtown, is busy with people from the nearby market and travellers from neighbouring hotels. Check your bill before paying.
-
Beano's
This branch of an extremely popular chain serves good coffee, fresh juice and a range of snacks to scores of young Cairenes who come to catch up on the gossip, use the wireless Internet provided and listen to music videos. There's another branch in Heliopolis.
-
Bull's Eye
This faux-English pub is a big stop on the nightlife circuit - an unpretentious place to rest up on non-clubbing nights. It draws a mix of expats and Egyptians, with darts, karaoke Wednesdays and, if you're inclined, steak on the menu.
-
Café Tabasco
This comfortable basement café resembles someone's lounge room. It's a great spot to spend an hour or so browsing the magazine collection and drinking coffee. The food is generally forgettable, though the breakfast has a fair few devotees among the expat set.
-
Cafeteria Horreyya
The Horreyya (there's no real sign outside - look for a pale-pink façade and plywood over some of the windows) is simultaneously one of the city's most classic ahwa s and one of its most up-to-the-minute. Not only can you stare dreamily through the sheesha smoke up at the high ceilings, down at the sawdust-strewn floor and out across a great cross-section of customers, but you can also check your email on the free wi-fi. Really. Another bonus: beer is also available (around £E8 ). There's a good chess scene here, too, though beer is strictly prohibited near those tables.
-
Cafeteria Port Tawfiq
Cafeteria Port Tawfiq ( M05DE; Midan Orabi, Downtown) is dark and slightly more inviting than the rest in this neighbourhood.
-
Cafeteria Stella
Marked with a tiny red neon sign, this spit'n'sawdust-style place gets good reviews from Downtown expats, who find it a more cheerful and welcoming place than similar bars nearby.
-
Cairo
Walk through the restaurant to the 1st-floor bar. The beer is not always icy, but the atmosphere is slightly sleazy and fun.
-
Advertisement
-
Cap d'Or
Quite run down, Cap d'Or is nonetheless possibly the very best of central Cairo's local bars. The staff and regulars are quite used to seeing foreigners.
-
Cilantro
This popular and stylish café is opposite the AUC. Small and extremely clean, it serves up excellent Italian-style coffee and Twinings tea, and has open fridges displaying packaged sandwiches, cakes and salads to eat in or take away. The brownies are particularly delicious. There are other, equally impressive, branches in Zamalek, Ma'adi, Giza and Heliopolis. Most of these offer free wireless access.
-
Club 35
If you go before midnight, the place doesn't look all that promising, as it's still in soft-jazz Asian-fusion-bistro mode. But later, the light show gets livelier, as does the music, and it rivals Latex for weekend crowds.
-
Coffee Roastery
Its fast-food menu, blaring music videos and young staff make this Hard Rock café-style eatery an extremely popular meeting place for groups of young locals. The coffee, which is served in 30 different ways, is surprisingly good. Don't bother with the food.
-
Deals
A small cellar bar that gets too smoky and packed for comfort late in the evening and at weekends, Deals is pleasant enough at quieter times. There are other branches in Mohandiseen and Heliopolis.
-
El Morocco
Cairo's gilded 20- and 30-somethings love this Moroccan restaurant/nightclub to bits and if you can air kiss and pout you'll feel right at home. There's a different DJ every night of the week except Sunday.
-
Exit
It's a different crowd every night at Exit, where the music ranges from African to rap to pop, but Friday is the night, when it doesn't matter what's playing as the place is jumping anyway.
-
Fishawi's Coffeehouse
One of the oldest ahwa s in the city, and certainly the most famous, Fishawi's (signed El Fishawy) is still a great place to watch the world go by. Despite being swamped by foreign tourists and equally wide-eyed out-of-town Egyptians, it is a regular ahwa , serving up shai and sheesha to stallholders and shoppers alike. It's especially alluring in the early hours of the morning. Note that it closes from till about during Ramadan.
-
Groppi Garden
Groppi Garden offers the same uninteresting pastries as the other Groppi, but the garden terrace here is a pleasant and relatively peaceful place for a pricey cup of tea.
-
Groppi's
This was once the place to take tea and cake, but that was a long time ago. Now the offerings are poor and overpriced (there's a minimum charge of Earound £E19 per person, which gives you a tea or coffee and two slices of plastic-looking gateau), and the tearoom reeks of cheap tobacco. For nostalgia buffs only.
-
Advertisement
-
Kaab Aaly
Formerly named High Heels (Kaab Aaly is the Arabic translation), this place is where local fashion victims come to strut their stuff. Occupying one of the hotel's Nileside outdoor terraces, it's a great place to enjoy a few drinks before heading out for the night. Its popular dining area has a decent Lebanese menu and juice bar.
-
L'Aubergine
Wear your tightest black T-shirt and your sharpest eyewear to this minimalist bar that's just a little hipper than other fab nightspots, catering to jazz cats, expats and moodier AUC students.
-
La Bodega
This vast, amber-lit lounge doubles as a restaurant, but the food (mains around £E29 to around £E50 ) is inconsistent, so better to stick with cocktails at the long brass-top bar. The place draws most of Cairo's celebrity scenesters, who look gorgeous against the Belle Epoque backdrop. One wing is sectioned off and dubbed Barten, where the crowd skews younger and the music louder. Reservations are recommended.
-
Latex
The grande dame of Cairo's club scene (formerly known as Jackie's), the Nile Hilton's basement party zone still keeps up with the times. The music is always some variation on house, with the occasional Arabic pop hit thrown in, and the crowd is largely 20-somethings. around £E100 minimum Tuesday through Friday, except for ladies on Wednesdays.
-
Le Grillon
Nominally a restaurant, this bizarre faux-patio is all about beer, sheesha and gossip about politics and the arts scene. The illusion of outdoors is created with wicker furniture, fake vines and lots of ceiling fans. The entrance is in the back of a courtyard between two buildings.
