Downtown Cairo was laid out in the 1860s to look like Paris, and the bars that opened in it are still there, behind unmarked doors and up stairwells nobody has painted since. Drinking here is legal, quiet and not advertised, so you knock and you go in. Five rooms in a square kilometre, walkable in the cool of the evening, and the beer is Stella and always has been.
- 1 · The Cold Open
Café Riche
Open on Talaat Harb since 1908, and for most of the twentieth century this was the room where Egypt argued with itself. Naguib Mahfouz sat here for decades and wrote here, and the back room is where the 1919 revolution is said to have been talked into being. It has closed and reopened more than once, survived an earthquake and a long shuttering, and the photographs on the walls are of people who really did sit at these tables. Come early, take a beer and a plate of something, and read the room before the road properly starts.
est. 1908, and Mahfouz's table · day into evening · verified Aug 2026
- 2 · The Detour
El Horreya
Founded in 1936 on the edge of Bab el-Louk, and the name means freedom. It is one enormous high-ceilinged room under strip lights with marble-topped tables, and it is really two places at once: one half drinks tea and plays chess and backgammon and has done all afternoon, the other half drinks Stella, and nobody has ever suggested separating them. That is the whole point of it. Order at the counter, take whatever table is free, and do not be surprised when a stranger sets up a board in front of you.
est. 1936, and the name means freedom · afternoon till late · verified Aug 2026
- 3 · The Anchor
Cap d'Or
Also called Sawy, on Abdel Khaleq Tharwat behind a door that gives nothing away, and open since 1908, the same year as Café Riche. It is narrow, it is loud, the Art Nouveau fittings are original and nobody has restored them because nobody thought to, and a bowl of termis, salted lupini beans, arrives with the beer without being asked and without being charged for. This is the anchor because it is the least changed room on the road and the one that makes the least effort to be anything. The pin is the street, not the door. Ask.
est. 1908, and the fittings are original · evening till late · pin is the lane, not the door
- 4 · The Wildcard
Odeon Palace roof
Take the lift to the top of a hotel that has seen better decades and come out onto a roof that does not close. Ever. It has run twenty-four hours for years and it is where Cairo's film people, writers and insomniacs end up at four in the morning when everything else has given up, sitting under the city's brown light with a Stella and a shisha. Nothing about it is smart and that is the entire attraction. The pin is the street, not the lobby.
the roof that never shuts · 24 hours · pin is the lane, not the door
- 5 · The Last Call
Barrel Lounge, Windsor Hotel
Up the old lift on Alfi Bey Street into a lounge that was a British officers' club, with chairs literally made from cut-down barrels and animal heads and clocks and a century of accumulated furniture that nobody has had the heart to clear. Michael Palin filmed here and the hotel has never quite got over it. It is the correct end to this road because you are already in the building where you will sleep: finish the last one, say goodnight to whoever is behind the bar, and take the lift back down two floors to bed.
an officers' club with 1890s bones · till late · verified Aug 2026 · 🏨 the night ends at Windsor Hotel
🎁 What we left off, and why. Stella Bar and Felfela stand within a hundred metres of Café Riche, which would have put three of five stops inside one block of Talaat Harb. Felfela is a good and famous kitchen and it is a restaurant that serves beer rather than a bar. Stella Bar is a genuine baladi room and if you want a second one on that block, take it. But a road is meant to move you through a city, and downtown Cairo is small enough already without spending three chapters on one corner of it.