Ramadan's Sawa Experience is Back at the Pyramids

Ramadan tents in Cairo have become a parallel economy. They operate somewhere between hospitality venture, cultural performance, and social referendum. You go to eat, yes. You also go to observe who else has come to eat, how the tables are spaced, how the light falls, whether the music works to inform the atmosphere. The tent simply serves as a temporary city, and SAWA understands this.

Now in its fifth year, welcoming upwards of 50,000 guests across the Holy Month, SAWA does not move through the city lightly. It selects sites that already carry historical power - the Grand Egyptian Museum, the Citadel, Manial Palace. It is now back at the Pyramids of Giza.

What registers first is the scale. The Pyramids anchor the horizon, and the tent arranges itself around that reality. Tables preserve the sightline. Sound slips outward into open air instead of rebounding off walls as light skims across suede kaftans and painted glass fixtures.

Opening night on February 22nd followed a precise run of timings; arrivals at 10 PM, entertainment at 10:45 PM, drones lifting at 11:30 PM, suhoor served at 11:45 PM. Ramadan tents at this scale are feats of logistics before they are feats of flavour. Kitchens must sustain volume, service must remain calm and collected as conversations extend into the small hours. The food functioned within this dynamic itinerary.Behind SAWA are Noura Ibrahim, Rose Agha, and Nour Abdelnassar, whose production expertise treats Ramadan as infrastructure. Gastronomy, entertainment, lighting, movement - each element is drafted into the same system. The aim is coherence rather decorative gestures that cannot withstand proximity to 4,500 years of heritage and one of the world’s last remaining ancient wonders.

There is something calculated about choosing the Pyramids again in 2026. Cairo’s appetite for destination dining has grown alongside its appetite for showmanship. SAWA runs nightly throughout Ramadan, carrying guests from iftar through sohoor beneath that fixed horizon.