Egyptian Food: A Traveller's Guide to What to Eat and Where

What is Egyptian food like?

Egyptian food is generous, filling and frugal: everyday cooking leans on beans, grains, bread and vegetables, with meat saved for weekends, feasts and guests. It shares a family resemblance with Levantine and Turkish cooking (stuffed vegetables, kofta, tahini, flaky pastry), but the flavours are its own: plenty of cumin, ground coriander, garlic, onion and lemon, rather than the heavy spice of the Gulf or the chilli heat of North Africa further west.

Three things shape the cuisine. The first is the Nile Valley's farming calendar: fava beans, onions, garlic, wheat and leafy greens have been grown here for thousands of years, and some of the dishes travellers eat today use the same ingredients that appear in tomb paintings. The second is history: Ottoman, Levantine, Greek and Italian communities all left their mark, which is why pasta turns up in koshari and filo-style pastry fills the sweet shops. The third is economics. Meat has always been expensive, so Egyptian cooks became expert at making beans and bread delicious, and that is great news for anyone who prefers plant-based eating.

Expect food that is comforting rather than fiery. Chilli comes on the side as a sauce called shatta, and pickles (torshi), tahini and a chopped salad of tomato, cucumber and onion arrive with almost everything.

How do Egyptians eat through the day?

Breakfast is beans and bread, the main meal is a late lunch at home, and dinner is light and late; street food fills the gaps at any hour. Knowing the rhythm helps you order the right thing at the right time.

• Breakfast (fetar): ful medames and ta'ameya with bread, white cheese, eggs, pickles and tea. Carts and counters sell it from early morning until about midday. Our guide to the Egyptian breakfast covers the full spread.
• Lunch (ghada): the big meal of the day, traditionally eaten around 3 to 5pm after work and school. At home it means rice, a vegetable stew in tomato sauce, a meat or chicken dish, bread and salad. Friday lunch after midday prayers is the weekly family feast.
• Dinner (asha): often something light after 9pm, such as leftovers, cheese and bread, or a sandwich bought on the way home. In the cities, restaurants and grill houses stay busy until midnight or later.

During Ramadan the pattern flips: nothing is eaten in daylight, the family meal (iftar) is served at sunset and a pre-dawn meal (suhoor) follows in the small hours. Travellers can still eat in hotels and tourist restaurants; see travelling Egypt during Ramadan for what changes.

Which Egyptian dishes should you try?

Start with the eight dishes below: three street-food staples, three home-cooked classics and two from the bakery and the butcher's oven. Each has its own guide covering ingredients, how it is eaten, where to try it and how to make it.

Other dishes you will meet on menus include kofta and kebab from the grill, stuffed pigeon (hamam mahshi), okra stew (bamya), baked macaroni with béchamel (makarona béchamel), lentil soup (shorbat ads) and baba ghanoug.

What about bread, drinks, sweets and the rest of the table?

Bread comes with every meal, tea follows every meal, and sweets mark every celebration, so each deserves its own exploration. These companion guides cover the rest of Egypt's table:

• Egyptian bread: aish baladi, the puffy wholemeal round whose name also means life, plus shamsi sun bread from Upper Egypt and the sesame-crusted simit sold from street carts.
• Egyptian street food: liver sandwiches, sausages, corn and sweet potato roasted on carts, and how to choose a stall.
• Seafood in Egypt: choose-your-fish restaurants in Alexandria and on the Red Sea, and the Nile catch.
• Egyptian desserts: basbousa, konafa, om ali, roz bel laban and the Ramadan specialties.
• Egyptian drinks: hibiscus karkade, sugar cane juice, sahlab, tamarind and seasonal mango.
• Tea and coffee in Egypt: ahwa coffeehouse culture and how to order your tea.
• Spices and food markets: what goes into Egyptian spice blends and where to shop.

How does food change around Egypt?

The Cairo canon of beans, koshari and stuffed vegetables is eaten everywhere, but each region adds its own accent. It is worth eating locally as you travel rather than sticking to cruise and hotel buffets.

Alexandria and the Mediterranean coast

Alexandria is the seafood capital: you choose fish, prawns or calamari by weight from an iced display and they are grilled or fried for you with rice and mezze. The city also has its own versions of familiar dishes, from fried liver sandwiches (kebda iskandarani) to a dough-wrapped hawawshi, and its Greek heritage shows in the patisseries. See Alexandria.

Upper Egypt: Luxor and Aswan

Food in the south is plainer and often spicier. Look for shamsi bread, left to rise in the sun, slow-cooked stews in clay pots and plenty of dates. In Aswan, Nubian families cook okra and vegetable stews, river fish and home-baked flatbreads, and a Nubian lunch is one of the most enjoyable meals of a Nile trip.

The oases and Sinai

Siwa is known for dates and olives, and Bedouin cooking in Sinai and the Western Desert centres on flatbread baked in embers or on a domed griddle, slow-cooked goat or chicken, and sweet herbal tea flavoured with desert herbs.

Where should you eat: street stall, restaurant or home?

Eat Egyptian food where Egyptians eat it: busy specialist eateries for street dishes, family-style restaurants for home cooking, and, if you can, a private home. Hotels and Nile cruise ships cook a few Egyptian dishes nightly, but they tend to tone them down.

• Specialist eateries: many of the best places sell one thing. A koshari hall does only koshari; a ful and ta'ameya counter opens at dawn; a fatatri bakes feteer to order. Long-running Cairo names such as Abou Tarek (koshari) and Felfela (Egyptian classics, since 1959) were trading at the time of writing, though businesses change, so check before you go.
• Family restaurants: these serve molokhia, mahshi, fattah and grills, and are where Egyptian families celebrate. Ask your guide for the current favourite in each city.
• Food tours and cooking classes: a guided Cairo food tour takes you to trusted stalls in a single evening, and an Egyptian cooking class puts you in a family kitchen to cook molokhia or roll vine leaves yourself.

Menus outside tourist areas are often in Arabic only, and many places simply serve what is in the pot. Pointing is perfectly acceptable, and a few words from our Arabic phrases guide go a long way.

How do you eat well and safely as a traveller?

Eat hot food cooked in front of you at busy places, drink bottled water, and tell your guide about any dietary needs early; that covers most of what you need to know.

Vegetarians and vegans eat well in Egypt because the street staples are bean- and grain-based; the things to ask about are ghee (samna) and meat stock in cooked dishes. Our vegetarian and vegan guide has the key phrases. For stomach health, see food safety in Egypt; the short version is that a crowded koshari hall is usually a safer bet than a lukewarm buffet.

A few customs help at the table. Bread is used as a utensil, so tear a piece and scoop. Eat and pass food with your right hand when sharing. Hosts will keep refilling your plate, and leaving a little food is the polite signal that you have had enough. Tipping a few pounds at a sit-down eatery is normal. On a private trip with Noble Travel, your guide can build food stops into sightseeing days, so lunch near the Pyramids or in Luxor is a local meal rather than a tour-bus buffet.