Cairo According to: Mai Eldib

You might know her as the author of the beautiful Assouline coffee table book, ‘Cairo Eternal’, but Mai Eldib is many things. She’s a cultural strategist, a visual art and culture specialist, and a polyglot. She is also Alexandrian, which explains many of her answers to the questions in this vertical. An outsider-turned-insider, she holds a reverent view of the Egyptian capital and is perhaps better equipped than most to pick out the peculiarities that make Cairo a shorthand for all of Egypt. (Indeed, she wrote a whole book about it.)

Here, she tells us a word that encapsulates Cairo, a 1959 comedy that best captures the spirit of the city, and the triangle of neighbourhoods she calls the ‘anti-compound’.

What’s a place that means Cairo to you?

The Pyramids — cliché, I know, but they have seen it all. Empires, revolutions, tourists, weddings, traffic, bad decisions. I often think about what they would make of what we are doing to Cairo now.

The city keeps inching closer and closer to them, and somehow one of the most extraordinary places on earth has also become one of the most overused, commercialised and almost prostituted sites in Egypt. I would love to know what they think of us.

Complete the following: Cairo is…

Chaos.

Cairo is chaos, but with its own rhythm. You almost have to surrender to it and that’s when you will really enjoy the roller coaster.

What’s your favourite neighbourhood?

Zamalek, and really the whole Zamalek, Garden City, Downtown orbit. It’s the anti-compound: layered, messy, walkable, full of history, and constantly revealing something you hadn’t noticed before.

Your go-to food spot?

Can I say my house? Nothing beats a homemade meal. But if I had to pick one dish out, it’s the Milanese at Pier 88; it reminds me of الوجبة الرياضية at Alexandria’s Sporting Club as a child.

Your go-to café?

Mazeej rooftop for a drink, and the Golden Healer from Beano’s in Zamalek.

A movie that defines Cairo?

Between Heaven and Earth — بين السماء والأرض.

Literally everything about it: the beauty, the aesthetic, the cast, ABSOLUTE chef’s kiss. But also the premise feels completely Cairene: a totally random cross-section of society trapped together in one lift, each person carrying their own drama. Somehow an entire city compressed into one tiny space. Claustrophobic yet oozing with humour and beauty.

What isn’t a Cairo landmark but should be?

The Gezira Sporting Club. Generations of Cairenes grew up there. As an Alexandrian I have the same childhood memories from the Sporting Club and now I can’t wait to create new ones here.

Sometimes a city’s real landmarks are the places where everyday life happened.

Tell us a song that feels like Cairo.

Zahma Ya Donia Zahma by Ahmed Adaweya. There really isn’t another answer.

What's a place in Cairo you wish you could revisit for the first time?

Islamic Cairo. That first realization that the city itself is the monument. And today, perhaps with a stronger instinct to save what’s left of it. There’s something tragic about building highways to move through Cairo faster while erasing the very layers that make it worth moving through.