Cairo Meets Colombo at Chef Larry Jayasekara’s Scalini Takeover

When a chef steps inside a kitchen that’s not theirs, they must first learn the lay of the land. It’s of course a familiar one, one that might even become second nature within only a matter of hours, but it is nonetheless a process that is akin to picking up a new dialect, if not a new language. In the worst of cases, it’s a gas-fuelled fiasco. In the best, like when Chef Larry Jayasekara stepped into Chef Mohamed Alaa’s Scalini kitchen for his Cairo Food Week 2026 takeover, an entire conservation can be had without even uttering a word.

Originally from Sri Lanka, Jayasekara built his career inside some of Europe’s most celebrated Michelin-starred kitchens, training under chefs like Marcus Wareing, Alain Roux, and Gordon Ramsay. As his own skills as a chef developed – eventually winning him the UK’s prestigious National Chef of the Year award in 2016 – so did his distinct style: a blend of Sri Lankan heritage, French culinary precision, and rigorous, classical training.

The Cocochine, Jayasekara’s four-storey fine-dining establishment which he opened in London’s Mayfair in 2024, is as storied as the Chef himself, having once been a photography studio used by supermodel Kate Moss and adorned today with specially commissioned mosaics, marble, and several priceless Andy Warhol paintings.

But it’s the regenerative farming that supplies The Cocochine’s world-class kitchen that makes it even more special. Jayasekara personally oversees the sourcing of ingredients from a 1200-acre estate in England and a privately-owned island off the coast of Scotland, both of which belong to The Cocochine’s co-owner, British billionaire Ian Wace. When Jayasekara arrived at Scalini Palm Hills for his collaborative dinner with Alaa, he brought some of his most cherished ingredients with him.As a cool breeze descended over west Cairo and guests began arriving at Scalini, Jayasekara and Alaa were in a groove. The kitchen was calm and quiet. Jayasekara is dressed in white, a blue towel tied to his apron. Alaa is dressed in black. Both had their teams by their side, including The Cocochine’s Head Chef Kushal Rai, who accompanied Jayasekara from London for the event.It did not at all look like they had just turned crates of venison, prawns, crab, caviar, and chocolate into an elaborate eight-course menu. There was the typical clatter of dishes, the hissing of stoves and water taps, the shuffling of feet against a floor constantly being mopped, but there was no hint of stress upon the chefs. In this tight space, made even tighter by SceneEats’s cameras and crew, a light-hearted mood reigned as though the dinner had already finished beautifully.

But it hadn’t—yet. Instead, it began only moments later as the first plates of Jayasekara’s delicately-assembled coronation prawns were served—prawns intended by Jayasekara as an kaleidoscope of flavour to prepare the palette into all that was to come. As the prawns did their work upon the guests, a wine ambassador from EgyBev, Cairo Food Week’s Official Wine Partner for its fourth edition, offered his recommendations to each table on the best pairing from a specially curated selection of Reds and Whites.But each dish, it turned out, proved kaleidoscopic. The Ceylon Crab Curry was as though it had just been scooped out of the wildest ocean; the Cairo Salad plated all the familiar components of Egypt’s baladi salad upon a Sri Lankan base that felt right at home. Alaa’s Truffle Chicken Ballotine took the experimentation of flavour up another notch, before Jayasekara’s dry-aged Sika deer venison took it even further. For dessert, Alaa’s Caramelized Onion Panna Cotta and Jayasekara’s Chocolate and Caviar did away with all the rules entirely.

As Cairo Food Week prepares for more intimate chef takeovers across Cairo east, west, and central, bringing international chefs to Cairo’s best kitchens to work with local teams to create new meanings around food, stay tuned to SceneEats for more exclusive coverage.