Tropical Africa is the new rage among the gastronomic glitterati of Cairo.
Planet Africa opened its door last month in the affluent northern Cairo suburb of Heliopolis. It is the latest and largest example of a surge of interest in African things. It is now de rigueur, mainly among the more youthful set of the Egyptian middle classes, to decorate flats and villas in sub-Saharan African themes.
A number of galleries and shops have sprung up, selling imported or copied African furniture and artefacts. A new breed of interior decorator is also on hand to provide advice on authentic textiles and motifs. A team of researchers, managers, designers and furniture makers were assembled to give the Planet Africa restaurant its ”African atmosphere”. The result is rather eclectic, but it is obvious that no money was spared in the process.
Against the wall of the main entrance, a 12-plasma screen display provides continuous images of National Geographic documentaries on Africa beside a waterfall featuring a giant, lifelike Nile crocodile. The reptile, a replica made in Germany, gives a yawning and toothy welcome to guests as they enter the cave-like restaurant complex, with its remarkably realistic, made in China, plastic rain forest.
A large silverback gorilla squats in the jungle at the entrance to the main dining area and grunts its welcome as soon as anyone entering crosses an infra-red beam; the main area is guarded by a trumpeting bull elephant, while a lion roars from under a tree to the side. Kora music, interspersed with drumbeats and the sounds of chattering monkeys, the chirping of birds and the occasional screech of a peacock, provides the aural wallpaper.
It is all certainly over the top, but it is so down to the smallest detail. Designs and motifs lifted from a Kente cloth or a Maasai necklace are used as decorative elements on plates, coffee cups, salt and pepper containers, tablemats, ashtrays, coasters and napkins.
There is only one jarring element in this African theme: the menu. It features a soup flavoured with parmesan cheese that is claimed to be ”the favourite of Zulu warriors”. The seafood shell salad is a tortilla filled with the flavours one might expect of a good Mexican restaurant; the same applies to the ostrich fajitas. Then there is Rasta pasta and a ciabatta topped with tomatoes, olive oil, garlic and basil that pose as ”tribal bread”.
”The menu will change,” says restaurant operations manager Ahmed Sayed. He explains that not only have his chefs not yet mastered ”real” African dishes, but that Egyptian palates still require some wider experience. — Â