Cairo Food Week Returns to Rewire the City’s Culinary Conversation

By the time last year’s Cairo Food Week drew to a close, the question wasn’t whether Egypt had a food scene. It was how it had taken this long for the rest of the world to sit down and listen.

Since 2023, when Flavor Republic first carved out a dedicated platform for Egypt’s culinary voices, Cairo Food Week has evolved into something more deliberate than a festival circuit cameo. Over three editions, it has convened kitchens that rarely share a pass, invited conversations that usually happen behind closed doors, and treated Egyptian food culture as a living archive rather than a nostalgic reference point.In the last edition, Barcelona's Edward Xatruch, the mastermind behind Disfrutar delivered a masterclass on how he constructs his abstract fining experiences. Palestinian-Jordanian chef Qais Malhas hosted collaborative dinners in Cairo, working inside local restaurants rather than staging standalone takeovers. Moroccan chef Faycal Bettoui joined Egyptian teams to build joint menus shaped around shared prep and service. At Kook, Asma Khan cooked in tandem with the kitchen space. Over at Mamina’s, Italian chef Riccardo Forapani worked directly with the in-house team, co-creating dishes that reflected both kitchens on a single pass. A series of talks rounded out the dinners and brought together prominent figures including viral food content creator and journalist Nadir Nahdi.

From September 24th to October 3rd, 2026, Cairo Food Week returns for its fourth edition, expanding in scale and tightening in intent. Across ten days, the city will host collaborative dinners alongside exhibitions, workshops, live podcasts, and talks — a programme designed to move between the table and the wider cultural ecosystem that shapes it.“Our objective is to place our Egyptian food and our Egyptian chefs on the global gastronomy map,” says Hoda El Sherif, CEO and Co-Founder of Flavor Republic. “Egyptians have food stories to tell, but with no platform, and that is the driving force behind Cairo Food Week.”

For co-founder Sherif Tamim, the framework is collective by design. “Food doesn’t exist alone. It’s shaped by farmers, cooks, designers, servers, cities, and memories. Seeing food as part of a collective allows richer stories to exist, and more honest ones.”Cairo Food Week has never been about showmanship for its own sake. It has been about building a vocabulary — one that situates Egypt within global gastronomy without diluting what makes it distinct. Ten days. Multiple tables. A city speaking through its kitchens.

Stay tuned to SceneEats for more exclusive news leading up to the upcoming fourth edition of Cairo Food Week by Flavor Republic.