Molokheya Pasta & the Performance of Fusion Dining at Scalini

In Palm Hills, Scalini sits behind glass and mirrors, an Italian dining room transplanted into the suburbs. Candlelight dimmed the tables. Guests leaned in across wide platters, cigars burning down slowly, dramatic glasses reflecting back at them in the mirrored walls. Dalida’s Love in Portofino played somewhere in the background. The room carried the air of a family gathering staged for effect.

The dinner was led by two chefs with different inheritances. Paolo Griffa, Piedmont-born, trained across Europe, collected awards, opened his restaurant in Aosta, and earned a Michelin star in three months. His cooking is known for irony, for joy, for a refusal to take itself too seriously even as technique remains absolute. Mohamed “Mido” Alaa began in London under Paulino Alves, returned to Cairo for Cairo Food Week as part of Scalini’s founding team, and this year took over its kitchen. His work is steadier, more local in its ambition, Italian food interpreted from here rather than imported whole.
A molokheya pasta — every piece stuffed by hand, green paste pressed into dough — became the star of the night. Herring followed, sharp and clean, Chef Mohamed’s moment. Yellowtail, sweeter than expected, left diners tilting their plates for the last traces of sauce. Pastries closed the evening, Griffa’s métier, wit translated into sugar.The staff moved easily through the room. Waiters described the dishes as if they had cooked them themselves. A photographer put down his camera, took phone pictures for a table. In the pauses between courses there was laughter from the service station, low and unforced. The colours were striking: green, red, white, a palette both national and deliberate. Everywhere, mirrors reflected the plates back at you — diners watching themselves eat. For one evening in Palm Hills, Scalini was less restaurant than stage, Italian ritual refracted through Cairo, a gathering at once intimate and theatrical.