Sear is Giving Steak a Street Food Makeover on the North Coast

There is a gap in Egypt's food scene that Ahmed Ghoneim noticed the moment he came home. During his university years in the UK, he worked in fine dining kitchens, mostly steakhouses, where Christmas markets served steak in paper-lined trays meant to be eaten on the move. Back in Egypt, steak was largely something you sat down for. That in-between option was missing.

Sear is now that middle ground.

Launched in summer out of a truck at two North Coast locations — Hacienda Red and Playa — Sear describes itself as Egypt's first dedicated steak truck, built around an entirely steak-focused menu rather than offering steak as one item among many. The concept has been three years in the making, though the name arrived faster than most of it. Ghoneim woke up in the middle of the night, wrote "Sear" on the nightstand, and went back to sleep. "I always wanted something short, sweet, and catchy," he tells SceneEats. "It describes everything we do in just one word."

The menu is, according to Ghoneim, deliberately short. At the centre, two cuts anchor the menu: a tenderloin, which Ghoneim describes as the signature, and a Denver cut, a lesser-known steak cut that is more commonly found in the United States. "It's not easy," Ghoneim says, "and I'm not surprised if we're the only ones who can do it." Both cuts are available with fries (skinny or thick) or folded into a sandwich, either on brioche toast or pressed into a thick sando in the Japanese tradition.

The burgers draw from the same source material. Rather than using a separate blend, Sear grinds its patties from steak trim. "Our patty tastes completely different from any other patty in Egypt," Ghoneim explains. Alongside the burgers and steaks, the menu runs truffle Parmesan fries and a mac and cheese built around layered textures: creamy, buttery and finished with a crisp top. Sauces arrive in a range that includes chimichurri, peppercorn, Café de Paris and an avocado Greek yogurt option, with a winter lineup already in development.

One item that made its way from the test kitchen to the permanent menu is the “coins”: miniature burgers, panini-pressed, served in sets of five with a dipping sauce. Sear documents much of its recipe development on Instagram, including the failures. A recent kiwi hot sauce was posted with a self-assessed score of seven out of 10. "Not everything we do is going to be perfect," Ghoneim says, "but everything we have on our menu, the finished product— that is always going to be perfect."

The path to the truck ran through television. Ghoneim had applied for the Egyptian culinary competition Million Pound Menu during its first season without hearing back. Then a call came in March 2025, inviting him to resubmit. Months of eliminations followed before a producers' tasting confirmed his place in the episode. By that point, as he put it, "Things started getting very, very real.” Uniforms, logos and recipes all had to be finalised before the cameras rolled. The day of filming ran from 5 AM well into the evening. Ghoneim went third among three contestants and spent over an hour in the investors' room. "Genuinely the most stressful hour of my life," he recalls. Despite the stress, or maybe because of it, he walked out of the episode a winner.

The experience converted for Ghoneim a long-gestating idea into a functioning business. “Million Pound Menu taught me that I should just get things started," he says, "and then everything will work itself out." His partners joined after the episode aired. Ziad Saleh, who handles marketing and came on board with his own agency background, spotted the opportunity before most people had finished watching. "I called him," Saleh tells SceneEats, "and I was like, I think we can do something very good together."

The third partner, Ali Khaled, oversees business development and partnerships. The three describe the structure as straightforward: each one owns a clear lane. "Everyone just knows what to do," Ghoneim says. "We carry each other really well."

What unites them, and what the truck is ultimately built around, is a single ambition: to make steak casual. Not ceremonial. Not expensive by default. "Everyone who wants to enjoy a steak has to go somewhere and sit down, pay quite a bit of money," Ghoneim says. "Why not have the option where I can go, have a steak on the go — and then go enjoy another steak at a fine dining restaurant for dinner as well?" The rest of Cairo will get its turn later in the year.