Cairo

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Cairo is one of the world’s most historically, socially, and culturally layered cities. In traffic, between business appointments, you’re likely to encounter neighborhood knife sharpeners hauling enormous stone wheels on their backs and farmers driving donkey carts laden with pyramids of produce. But don’t be deceived by living remnants of Egypt’s 5,000-year-old past or the Third World traffic snarls. From cell phone moguls, to real estate tycoons, to furniture and textile manufacturers, a new generation of Egyptian entrepreneurs is taking Arab business global, overcoming obstacles that range from state corruption and bureaucracy to regional conflicts and anti-Arab bias in the West.

Where to Sleep
Cairo’s two Four Seasons Hotels provide the city’s best service and amenities. The smaller Four Seasons at the First Residence, on the West Bank of the Nile, has a spa and a gym and draws a Western clientele. Designed to feel like a private neoclassical palace, it’s far more serene than its newer and flashier East Bank sister, the Four Seasons at the Nile Plaza, but the latter, popular with visiting Arab Gulf travelers, has the advantage of balconies overlooking the Nile and an even larger spa. The Conrad, downriver, is closer to Cairo’s new high-rise financial center. In the desert between the airport and the high-tech suburb of New Cairo, the JW Marriott enjoys isolation from the noise and chaos of the center. The recently renovated Cairo Marriott, in Zamalek Island’s embassy district, has business meeting rooms in the palace built by the Khedive Ismail for the 1879 opening of the Suez Canal; the terrace garden café is an all-day meeting place for expats and the Cairo elite. The rooms could use a face-lift, but the Nile Hilton, a classic piece of 1950s hotel architecture, has an unbeatable location between the Nile and the adjacent Cairo Museum (home to King Tut’s treasures), a large pool, a gym equipped with a squash court, and Latex, one of the city’s few Western-style dance clubs.

Where to Eat
In terms of food, the mall-like Semiramis Intercontinental Hotel, two blocks from the U.S. embassy, has the hotel world’s best restaurant trio: Sabaya, a Beirut-chic Lebanese place; the Bird Cage, a Thai venue; and Pane Vino, serving contemporary Italian. Aqua, the fish restaurant at Four Seasons Nile Plaza, is the place to go for seafood and sushi with a river view; Orascom CEO Naguib Sawiris is a frequent diner at the sister steak house. When they entertain top clients, investment bankers cater from both places but book the hotel’s private dining rooms. On mild days and evenings, fans of Islamic architecture, alfresco dining, and Middle Eastern cuisine should reserve a table on the terrace at Al Azhar Park’s Studio Misr hilltop restaurant, which serves Arabic grills and mezes (though no alcohol) and has splendid views of the city’s mosques and minarets.

Where to Close a Deal
Social clubs are a remnant of the British colonial era, when Egyptians were banned from most hotels and the European business elite—Greeks, French, Italian—also kept to themselves. Today Egypt’s political and business moguls have taken up the club tradition; you’ll need a connection but will show yourself in the know by asking to set up a meeting at the Cairo Diplomats Club or the Automobile Club, both in turn-of-the-century mansions downtown. For one on ones, the Bar and Cigar Room at the Four Seasons First Residence, by the Giza Zoo, has a British men’s club atmosphere and a reliably diverse wine list. For a big splash, Abercrombie and Kent can arrange dinners for large parties in catered tents after sundown by the Pyramids on Giza Plateau, as well as in recently restored nineteenth-century palaces, including the marble pavilion and swimming pool built in Shuba for the nineteenth-century founder of modern Egypt, Mohammed Ali. But such extravagance costs—dinners begin at $10,000.
 
Where to See and Be Seen
Abou El Sid, a restaurant-bar in a 1900s building on Zamalek, serves local classics such as stuffed pigeon, moulakheya (a garlicky rabbit stew with spinachlike greens), tiny grilled quail, and minty veal kebabs in a setting of Egyptian royalist gilded chairs and Warholesque portraits of Cairo icons such as singer Oum Kalthoum. Around the corner at La Bodega, diplomats and thirty-somethings mingle at the Art Deco–inspired Baehler Building, which also houses two bar-lounges. On balmy spring and summer evenings, hipsters gravitate toward Nile-side restaurant lounges, including Sequoia, Sangria, and Topkapi. Just off Tahrir Square, After Eight has rotating theme nights (Arab techno, hip-hop, jazz, etc.) and only really gets going after midnight.
   
Local Codes
Before your Cairo trip, bone up on local issues by reading the English language news sites, including aljazeera.com and weekly.ahram.org.eg, and blogs such as arabist.net. Many Muslim Egyptians drink alcohol; when in doubt, follow your host’s lead. Your Egyptian counterpart will inevitably insist on covering the bill; to avoid embarrassing your contacts, signal the restaurant beforehand if you intend to settle. Women and men should cover their shoulders and legs in public. A pantsuit is appropriate for women in business meetings. Many Egyptian women wear the head scarf, or hijab, but you’ll be surprised at the variety of Islamic fashion, which includes the voluminous, all-black Shiite abaya (veil and face covering) and a color-coordinated head scarf with a long-sleeve skintight mini dress worn over low-slung designer jeans, à la Paris Hilton.

The Three-Hour Tour
Hire a car and driver (about $75 per hour from luxury hotels) and get your sightseeing done before 1:30 P.M., when schools all over Cairo let out and traffic snarls the city. Be at the Egyptian Antiquities Museum by 8:45 A.M. sharp and head straight for room 3 on the first floor to contemplate King Tut’s golden mask for a few precious, uncrowded moments; then visit the rest of the Tut treasures, the royal mummies in room 56, and the haunting Greco-Roman “Fayoum” funeral portraits in room 14. At 10 A.M. drive via the Cairo Ring Road to the upper entrance of the Pyramids on Giza Plateau. At 11:30, drive to Islamic Cairo and Al Hussein Mosque Square. Have your driver wait while you walk through the alleys of the Khan al-Khalili market, where 1,000 years of Islamic monuments still stand among tourist stalls selling Queen Nefertiti busts. Finish with a cup of mint tea or Arabic coffee at Fishawis, a coffee shop founded during Napoleon’s 1798 invasion.

Airport Intelligence
Despite the international airport’s recent renovations and upgraded facilities, including wireless Internet, scenes of pandemonium are common. Long immigration lines are the norm, so definitely arrange a meet and greet from your hotel or travel agency; someone will wait with a sign before the immigration desk and smooth the visa process and baggage pickup. If you don’t have a visa in your passport, you must go to a bank window and purchase government stamps (about $15). You can change dollars into Egyptian currency at teller windows or use baggage terminal ATM machines. The CIB Bank (with branches throughout Cairo) has the most reliable ATM service.

 –Susan Hack