Bougainvillea, car horns, old splendour: a day in my Cairo
Egypt-born, London-based writer Alya Mooro takes The Everywoman on a winding journey through Zamalek, Cairo’s old garden suburb.
Words Alya Mooro
Growing up, my Cairo was the one of my parents, of my grandparents. It was family lunches, weddings, did you know I’ve known you since you were this small? Palms brought down to their knees.
I was born there, and I lived in the city again when I was twelve — a year that shaped me and cemented friendships that would bring me back again and again. That would make me feel at home. As an adult, I had to learn how to feel at home there all over again.
These days, when I visit from London, where I live, I often spend the day in Zamalek. An island in the Nile, it’s leafy and walkable — rare for Cairo. It’s where I went to school, where my maternal grandparents and paternal great-grandparents lived, but it’s also where embassies and cultural centres sit side by side with art galleries and old villas.
Built in the 19th century as an affluent garden suburb, a sense of nostalgia hangs around it still. Bougainvillaea spills over walls, crumbling staircases sit next to gleaming new cafés, and roots of trees break through the pavement, refusing to be contained. It’s easy to spend whole days there, walking around, eating and seeing creativity bloom all around the city.
Here’s a little glimpse of my Cairo.
For eclectic design on the banks of the Nile
MOUNAYA
Crowded with boutiques, art galleries and concept stores championing both local and regional designers, Mounaya is one of my favourites to visit. I always discover cool brands when I’m there — a pair of earrings from Jude Benhalim; hand-painted ceramics; Egyptian linens embroidered with Arabic calligraphy.
My favourite find was a vintage magazine cover from Bint El Nil, a feminist publication from the 1940s founded by Doria Shafik, who was instrumental in securing Egyptian women the right to vote. It hangs on the wall of my bedroom in Cairo, a reminder of all the shoulders we stand on. I almost never leave the store empty-handed.
For a literary take on Cairo
DIWAN BOOKSTORE
Right off the busy main road, I enter Diwan to that customary book-ish hush, and a sense of awe. Diwan is an incredible champion of Arabic writing, with meticulously curated displays that sit contemporary fiction alongside classics, from Ihsan Abdel Quddus, to Nawal El Saadawi, newly translated novels from Beirut and beyond.
I launched my own debut, The Greater Freedom, there in 2019. The room was crowded with family and friends, my aunts sitting in the front row, their eyes shining. Nadia Wassef, one of the store’s co-founders, wrote Shelf Life, a memoir about being a bookseller in Cairo. It captures both the power and the precarity of building spaces like this: places where stories, and their tellers, are taken seriously. Places that offer access to whole worlds you might not otherwise find. Being in there always reminds me of the importance of story.
For a creative pause in the hustle-bustle
THAT REALLY COOL STUDIO
If I need a space to work or to get a dose of local creativity, I pop into a studio founded by friends of mine. It’s part co-working space, part cultural hub, part living room for Cairo’s young creatives to chatter and congregate. The shelves are stacked with independent Arab magazines and the walls lined with artworks by local painters and photographers.
In the evenings, there’s always something on: a talk on Arabic typography, perhaps, or a documentary screening, or a pop-up photo exhibit. Wander past, you never know what you’ll stumble into.
For heaving plates of mezze in old-world surrounds
ABOU EL SID
When in Cairo, it’s not always easy to extract myself from the generous, heaping hospitality of friends’ and family’s homes — but whenever friends visit, I take them to Abou El Sid. The interiors are heavy with velvet and mashrabiyas, menus styled like illuminated manuscripts. The food is rich and deeply Egyptian: molokhia, mahshi, mezze laid across the table, plates arriving one after the other, until it’s impossible not to overeat.
For a sweet finish
KOUEIDER
Egyptians have a sweet tooth, and Koueider is an institution. The counters are stacked with konafa, basbousa, and baklava dripping with syrup, and the ice cream is legendary. I often get a little bit of everything, men behind the counters weighing and boxing up countless sticky ecstasies. A sugar rush: the most fitting ending to the day. Then it’s back into the traffic, the horns and the heat, all the way home.
Koueider.com
