Salt Forest Turns Your Home Into a Japanese Fine Dining Destination

In November 2025, a new concept began appearing on social media through the stories of influencers and famous personalities in Cairo: an outdoor, candle-lit Japanese fine-dining experience set around a beautifully-furnished table with a five-course menu. This was the work of Salt Forest. People who were searching for Salt Forest, however, would not find it. Instead, it turns out that Salt Forest would come to you.

“The experience begins long before the first bite,” says Moslem Ghoneim, founder of Salt Forest. “Experiences are what make gatherings memorable, and this concept allows people to host something special in their own space, without effort, while enjoying the intimacy and excitement of a backyard transformed into a fine dining experience.” The key word here is ‘transformed’. Ghoneim and his team don’t just bring the food; they bring the tables, the tableware, and the teppanyaki grill, creating a live show and supplanting an entirely new space onto the familiar. The setup is both meticulously over-planned and seemingly organic, a fine balance characteristic of fine dining. “The tableware is asymmetrical, meant to mimic nature. The raw, unstructured aesthetics used by wood, stones, and bamboo, are inspired by the feel of a forest,” explains Ghoneim.

But of course, nothing about this is spontaneous. “From the name cards placed in corks to stone candle holders and wooden chopstick rests, no detail in the visual identity is left to chance,” says Ghoneim. One such example of this attention to detail are the fortune cookies, which may at first be seen as a little out of place. But Ghoneim has done his research: while fortune cookies are typically associated with Chinese-American cuisine, they are actually Japanese in origin, having first emerged in Kyoto, Japan in the 1800s. Before Salt Forest, while Ghoneim was still in university, he launched a small business offering customised table setups, tablescapes, and picnic-style tables for private events at people’s homes. This perhaps explains why Salt Forest is at least as much about the immersive setup as it is about the food. But it still bears asking: why Japanese?

Ghoneim noticed a gap in the market that he wanted to address. While experiential dining as a whole is still relatively new to Egypt (with The Sage Experience emerging as a recent pioneer in the field), Salt Forest addresses another kind of gap. “Japanese cuisine is highly loved and in huge demand in Egypt, yet the experience is almost always limited to restaurants or casual takeout,” explains Ghoneim. “While other cuisines have already found their way into private, at-home dining experiences, Japanese cuisine has not. That gap became the foundation of Salt Forest.” With regards to how much this experience will set you back, Ghoneim thinks Salt Forest’s pricing is good value for money (as far fine dining goes). “The experience is priced similarly to a fine dining restaurant meal. However, if you were to order all the dishes from our five-course set menu at a fine dining Japanese restaurant to share, it would cost significantly more. On top of that, our concept brings the full immersive experience directly to your home, while offering generous portion sizes.”

These generous portions include everything from salmon tataki to shrimp gyoza, chili-kissed noodles with beef and chicken, and platters of sushi. And for dessert, fried banana bites and vanilla ice cream. However, Ghoneim tells us that Salt Forest’s menu is seasonal. So far, their guests have gotten to experience the brand’s winter menu, but with the coming of Ramadan they will soon be rolling out their first menu refresh. While Salt Forest currently focuses on private, at-home dinners, their coming step is to expand their catering to larger events such as engagements, weddings, and corporate functions, and eventually branch out into other cuisines as well.