Global Chef Alex Atala Brings Amazonian Flavors to Egypt’s North Coast
At Ramla, with the Mediterranean pressing close and the pace dictated by tide rather than ticket times, he began merging Egypt’s pantry with his own.

The dish that caught him was not the fish, or even the lamb — though he’ll tell you “maybe one of the best lambs in my entire life.” It was the rice. Sweet, scented, deceptively simple. “I guess the sweet rice has cinnamon and cardamom. Surprise. We are talking about emotions, and that simple rice stole my heart.”
That was Alex Atala’s first lesson from Egypt’s North Coast, learned before the first plate of the WHEN WE EAT Signature Dinner Series at Ramla by Marakez was even set down. For the chef behind D.O.M. in São Paulo — a restaurant that redefined fine dining by placing Amazonian biodiversity at its centre — it felt right that the surprise came from the humblest of places.
“Egypt can bring new flavors, new combinations, new feelings, new emotions from the old — and sometimes boring — fine dining scenery.” At Ramla, with the Mediterranean pressing close and the pace dictated by tide rather than ticket times, he began merging Egypt’s pantry with his own. “Of course I had a mental plan for the menu. I try to merge flavors or references of Egyptian cuisine and also my cuisine. The most important thing to make a delicious meal is to have delicious ingredients. That is exactly what I found here.”
But there’s another thread here, too — one that runs back to his grandfather, a Palestinian whose story shadows Atala’s return to the region. “Even if I have a Middle Eastern background, it doesn’t matter how many times I have been in the Middle East. Being in Egypt is always a new learning experience, a new gate of flavor, new possibilities of combination, nice ambience, traditional culture and even better, traditional food.”
Atala arrived in Egypt with little hesitation. “I got the call and said, do you want to come to Egypt? Yes, simple like this.”The simplicity holds — in the rice, in the lamb, in the sea-facing kitchen where fire touches fish." And yet the impression lingers: that a single meal on this coast, part of an ongoing series designed to connect chefs and landscapes, can carry the weight of lineage, biodiversity, and the stubborn belief that the overlooked still has something new to give.
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Aug 13, 2025