Tchaï Hosts Cairo’s First Live Tuna Cutting Ceremony by The Cannery

Conversations gave way to murmurs as four men emerged carrying a 60-kilogram bluefin tuna through the centre of Tchaï Teahouse. Heads turned before phones did, though only briefly. Within moments, chairs had been pushed back, guests had drifted instinctively towards the centre of the room, and the dinner crowd had rearranged itself into a quiet semicircle around a bed of crushed ice. For a few minutes, nobody seemed particularly interested in finding their seat again.
The bluefin had been harvested off the coast of Damietta the previous day. Its silver skin still caught the light as a master fish cutter stepped forward to begin what Tchaï describes as Egypt's first live tuna-cutting ceremony, the opening act of The Cannery Experience, a collaborative dinner between Tchaï and the century-old Port Said seafood house The Cannery. There was little of the performance often associated with tableside theatrics. Instead, the room settled into the measured cadence of blade against bone. The first incision came just behind the head before the fish cutter worked methodically through the collar, spine and tail, pausing every so often to trace a seam of fat with the tip of his knife or explain why one cut was prized for sashimi while another revealed its best qualities scraped straight from the bone.

For Tchaï, the evening was never intended to merely be a show. “We wanted to take our relationship with a local supplier and push it further, not just by serving their seafood, but by bringing people into the story behind it,” says Hourig Mekhtigian, Culinary Director of Tchaï. “The Cannery is a small family business from Port Said, they own their boats, everything is wild caught, and we wanted our community to experience the quality and care behind that.”

That idea carried through the rest of the evening. What looked, at first glance, like a single fish gradually revealed itself to be a catalogue of different textures, flavours and possibilities. When everyone finally returned to their tables, the tuna had already begun its quiet transformation. Thick crimson loins gave way to translucent slices of sashimi served across three distinct cuts. Meat scraped directly from the spine arrived while the memory of watching it being removed was still fresh. Bone marrow, collar, head and tail followed over the next several courses, accompanied by Tchaï's botanical infusions, whose citrus, herbs and florals reset the palate without distracting from the fish.The menu was designed to challenge the assumption that only a handful of cuts deserve attention. “We wanted people to understand that a tuna is not just one or two cuts that everyone knows,” says Mohamed Sobh, founder of The Cannery. “The marrow, the spine, the collar, the head and even the tail all have value. When you understand the ingredient, you start respecting the entire journey behind it.”

That philosophy became increasingly apparent as the courses unfolded. Spine scrapings, bone marrow and the collar—parts many diners rarely encounter—were treated with the same care as the prized sashimi cuts, each preparation revealing a different side of the fish rather than competing for attention. As Sobh puts it: “The most valuable part for many people is the otoro, the fattiest part of the belly, but other parts are often discarded simply because people don’t know how to use them. Our goal was to show guests that these parts can be just as meaningful when treated with the right technique.”

For Mekhtigian, the evening was equally about creating a sense of discovery. “We wanted people to walk in and discover something they had never experienced before,” she explains. “The most exciting part is creating that moment of surprise, where you can learn something new and experience food in a completely different way.”