Cairo eats loudly and late: ful and taameya carts at dawn, molokhia and stuffed pigeon at midday, feteer folded to order, and coffeehouses pouring mint tea past midnight. Three days across Downtown, Zamalek, Imbaba and Bab El-Louk.
Downtown's near-24-hour produce souq behind Orabi Square: crates of Egyptian mangoes, guava, dates and molokhia leaves, plus stalls of torshi pickles and mish cheese. Busiest 07:00-11:00, when neighbourhood cooks and hotel chefs haggle side by side.
Open since 1959 and still the clearest introduction to Egyptian mezze: ful medames stewed overnight, taameya made with split fava beans (not chickpeas), baba ghanoug, and fried aubergine with tahina. Wood-and-lantern interior, daily 09:00-midnight.
A Cairo institution since 1976, recognisable by the crowd spilling onto the pavement. Trays of basbousa, konafa with cream, baklava and petits fours sold by the kilo, with a separate counter for gelato-style ice cream eaten standing on the street.
The Zamalek branch of a family patisserie founded in 1928, famous for rice-pudding-thick mango and guava ice cream and for om ali sold in takeaway tubs. Small marble counter, no seating, steady queue of island residents from late afternoon.
Egyptian street food rebuilt for a sit-down breakfast: hawawshi in baladi bread, taameya sandwiches with tomato salsa, and shakshuka with dukkah. Opens 09:00; the pink-tiled interior and hibiscus lemonade make it the easiest first meal of the trip.
Dim red majlis rooms behind an unmarked door, serving the home dishes Cairenes rarely eat out: molokhia with rabbit, mahshi stuffed vine leaves, fatta with lamb shank, and pigeon. Reservations advised for the 13:00-16:00 lunch sitting.
Feteer meshaltet stretched, folded and slid into the oven in front of you — the flaky layered pastry that predates most of Cairo's cuisine. Savoury versions come with pastirma and cheese, sweet ones with honey, sugar and clotted eshta cream.
Plastic chairs on a working-class Imbaba street, grills going until 04:00. The menu is offal done properly: liver fried with chilli and lime, mombar sausage, sogo' in tomato, and brain in butter, eaten with bread and cumin-heavy salad.
Trading since 1797 in an alley behind the Hussein Mosque, its walls lined with tarnished mirrors. Mint tea, thick Turkish-style ahwa mazbout and karkadeh arrive with a shisha waiter and a stream of vendors; Naguib Mahfouz wrote here for decades.
A cramped grill house that has built its reputation on hamam mahshi — pigeon stuffed with freek, the green cracked wheat that gives the bird its smoky depth. Charcoal grills sit on the pavement; ordering is done standing, seating is upstairs.
A cast-iron covered market from the early 1900s, still the neighbourhood's larder: white domiati and rumi cheese cut from wheels, dried molokhia, karkadeh flowers, hibiscus, and spice sellers grinding dukkah and baharat blends to order.
Fluorescent-lit, marble-topped and open since the 1930s: half the room drinks tea and plays backgammon, the other half drinks cold Stella from the local brewery. No food served, no music, and the same prices Cairenes have paid for years.