At Cantina by Olivo, tucked inside Palm Hills, the night had all the makings of a Brooklyn backyard barbecue — if your Brooklyn backyard came with candlelight, cigars, and 80s pop music blaring on repeat. Ten tables were set, though by the end no one was sitting at the one they started with. Drinks flowed, music dared you to dance, and the whole thing quickly devolved (or evolved, depending on your perspective) into a dinner party that was, in theory, white tablecloth but had the feel and vision of family dinner — only with better brisket.Billy Durney — the man behind Hometown Bar-B-Que, Red Hook Tavern, and an entire mythology of Brooklyn smokehouses — stood at the centre. Except this wasn’t Brooklyn. This was Cairo. And the man known for one of New York’s most infamous burgers was suddenly waxing lyrical about Molokhiya. The first time he tasted it — at Zooba, day one in the city — he swore it was like being back at his grandmother’s table. By the time he was ladling the emerald-green gravy over smoked brisket and vermicelli rice at every table himself, you realised he genuinely meant it.Of course, Billy didn’t do it alone. Dina Hosny (Dine with Deenuh) turned the table into her usual playground of Mediterranean light and local ingredients. Hazem Abdelghany — Cool Cat incarnate — balanced the riot of flavours that included romain lettuce and mustard caviar. Together, they delivered a menu that veered from cold Spanish almond soup to shrimp flatbread to hot-honey lasagna, ending in a dessert imbued with citrus.

But to talk only of food would be to miss the point. The night was open-air, candlelit, with Cairo’s autumn wind doing its best impression of set design. Ten tables at the start, one long stretch of chatter and smoke by the end. Billy, sleeves rolled, glass in hand, urging everyone to eat more, drink more, dance more. The Cairo Food Week crew were spotted weaving through tables, serving plates, laughing like co-conspirators. Guests tilted plates to scoop up the last of the sauce, strangers became drinking buddies, and somewhere between the molokhiya ladled tableside, a dinner turned into a scene you couldn’t quite script, but wouldn’t dare forget.And that scene belongs, in no small part, to Palm Hills. As Cairo Food Week’s largest district partner, Palm Hills wasn’t just lending space — it was underlining an ethos. That real estate is not just walls and doors, but culture and hospitality. That Cairo is not just home, but destination. That food, music, and conversation are just as integral to a neighbourhood as the bricks that frame it. Cantina by Olivo became their proof - suburban terrace reimagined.