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CairoScene
16-07-2025
- Entertainment
- CairoScene
Renowned Chef Mads Refslund Loves the Chaos of Egypt's Food Culture
In this Scene Eats exclusive interview, Refslund takes us through what it takes to create a dining experience that speaks to the people, place and culture of a space. Jul 16, 2025 On Egypt's North Coast, where the Mediterranean softens into a salt breeze and the desert exhales into design, Chef Mads Refslund is doing what he does best: starting from scratch. 'Everywhere I go,' he says, 'I'm trying to tell a story from the time and place I'm at.' That place, for now, is Ramla - Marakez's sandy beachfront escape, built for the art of slow living, is now the refined stretch of shoreline hosting the opening act of WHEN WE EAT's Signature Dinner Series - a month-long culinary project bringing global chefs to Sahel's coast from July 15 to August 15. First to arrive is Refslund, the Danish-born co-founder of Noma - one of the most influential restaurants in the world - and the chef behind Brooklyn's genre-defying ILIS, named Best New Restaurant 2023 by Esquire and Most Important Restaurant Opening 2024 by La Liste. A pioneer of the New Nordic movement, Refslund is known for his fire-and-ice cooking philosophy, his obsession with fermentation, and a forager's respect for the natural world. His three-night residency - running July 16, 17, and 19 - reframes coastal Egyptian ingredients through his singular lens. Think seafood, fruit, salt, flame. But don't expect a menu printed in advance. 'Everyone wants a menu up front,' he says, 'but I want to create it when I get here - when I can smell and taste everything.' That meant a 4 a.m. trip to Alexandria's oldest fish market, where chaos and tradition mingle in a salt-stung air. 'It felt like walking into something that's been happening for 60 years. Very hectic. But I loved it.' From those stalls to the seaside table, Refslund builds his menu in real time: hyper-local ingredients transformed through fire and intuition. 'It'll be a mix of the way we cook and all the ingredients from here,' he says. 'It has to feel rooted.' And though the flavours may be unexpected, his hope is human. 'Hopefully a lot of these people will become friends,' he says. 'Sharing a good meal is something that talks to the heart.' Refslund is just the beginning. He'll be followed by Kelvin Cheung of Jun's in Dubai (ranked No. 7 on MENA's 50 Best Restaurants 2025), known for his vibrant takes on diasporic Indian-Chinese flavours, and Brando Moros of Michelin-starred 11 Woodfire (No. 28 on the list), whose food draws power from char, smoke, and the purity of a single flame-kissed ingredient. The season's final supper takes place on August 15th, when Alex Atala - chef of D.O.M. in São Paulo (2 Michelin stars) - prepares a one-night-only multi-sensory dinner beside Ramla's tidal pools. For bookings head to:
CairoScene
01-07-2025
- Entertainment
- CairoScene
WHEN WE EAT Brings Globally Renowned Chefs to Ramla in Ras El Hekma
WHEN WE EAT Brings Globally Renowned Chefs to Ramla in Ras El Hekma By early evening, the tide has already begun to pull back from the limestone shore at Ras El Hekma. Salt gathers on the surface of the rock pools, and the wind shifts direction. Just behind Ramla's beach restaurant, someone is lighting the day's fire - olive wood and citrus branches from a nearby grove. The smoke comes first, then the scent: slightly bitter, dry, unmistakably coastal. This is the beginning of WHEN WE EAT at Ramla - a summer dinner series staged across four weeks, from July 15th to August 15th, hosted on Egypt's Mediterranean coast in partnership with MARAKEZ. The open-air restaurant sits steps from the sea, tucked into the walkable centre of Ramla - MARAKEZ's 400-acre coastal community designed to epitomise slow living. Over the season, the kitchen is turned over to a lineup of world-class chefs for a series of three-night takeovers, each one shaped by fire, fresh catch, and the summer produce that flourishes along this stretch of the Mediterranean. Mads Refslund First to arrive is Mads Refslund, chef of ILIS in New York and co-founder of NOMA, bringing with him a method rooted in foraging and flame. He's followed by Kelvin Cheung, of Jun's in Dubai- ranked No.7 on MENA's 50 Best Restaurants 2025 - known for his inventive takes on diasporic Indian-Chinese flavours filtered through a regional lens. Then comes Brando Moros, of 11 Woodfire, the Michelin-starred restaurant ranked No.28 in the same list, whose dishes are built around char and the clarity of a single ingredient exposed to heat. "This is a 'WHEN WE EAT Signature Dinner' series but, they're not just dinners. They're a celebration of community and a preservation of our Egyptian coastal way of life," Hoda El-Sherif, co-founder of Flavor Republic, tells Scene Eats. Each dinner is a tribute to the small-scale fishermen working our Mediterranean coast from Alexandria to Matruh - the back bones of this delicate ecosystem who persevere tirelessly to protect it. With Marakez, we're setting the tone for the future of conscious destination experiences." The ingredients come from nearby: sea bream and mullet caught that morning, eggplants blistered over open flame, tomatoes ripened in Matrouh's dry sun, and wild herbs picked before noon to avoid wilting. Everything is prepped in the open - guests can see the stations, the coolers, the butcher's twine, the clatter of prep just audible over the waves. The dining setup is elemental: driftwood tables, linen runners weighted with salt jars, seating arranged around the fire so close you feel the heat on your knees. The project reflects the broader mission of WHEN WE EAT, the storytelling platform developed by Flavor Republic, the food-focused studio co-founded by Hoda El-Sherif and Sherif Tamim in 2014. What began as an attempt to style food with the same care given to fashion and interiors became the region's first agency dedicated to food and its cultural footprint. From that grew WHEN WE EAT, and from it, Cairo Food Week - a ten-day culinary encounter launched in 2023 that brought over 20 celebrated international chefs to Egypt to cook across context: from the Grand Egyptian Museum and the foot of the Pyramids to city markets and farms along the desert fringe. Ramla offers a quieter stage. Its buildings are grounded in limestone, its piazzas open to wind, and its lagoon - a centrepiece of the project - shifts colour as the sun descends. 'Food has always been a gateway to culture and connection - and at Ramla, we see it as central to the experience we're building. We're partnering with WHEN WE EAT to bring world-class culinary talent to Egypt's North Coast while staying rooted in local identity. These dinners will gather people together around good food, meaningful stories, and a deep sense of place - that's what Ramla is all about,' Ashraf Maklad, Chief Commercial Officer MARAKEZ, tells Scene Eats. Alex Atala The season's final supper takes place on August 15th, when Alex Atala - chef of D.O.M. in São Paulo (2 Michelin stars) - prepares a one-night-only multi-sensory dinner beside Ramla's tidal pools. Atala's work draws on the depth and biodiversity of the Amazon, which he threads into each course with a kind of cartographic awareness. At Ramla, he'll explore the tension and kinship between two ecosystems: the lush, river-fed terrain of northern Brazil and the saline, mineral-rich coastline of the Egyptian Mediterranean. Tickets will be available soon.
CairoScene
14-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CairoScene
WHEN WE EAT Returns with a Pop-Up That's Part Pantry, Part Photo Show
Downtown Cairo serves up a feast for the senses as WHEN WE EAT brings back 'The Corner Shop' and debuts 'Beyond The Plate' — a photo-fuelled, palate-pleasing journey into global food culture. May 14, 2025 Food in Cairo isn't a ritual—it's a mood. It happens standing, mid-story, elbow-deep in tahini. And starting May 14th, that chaotic, layered pleasure is taking form inside Kodak Passageway, where WHEN WE EAT returns to Cairo Photo Week with two intertwined experiences: an immersive photo exhibition and the revival of one of the city's cult culinary pop-ups, The Corner Shop. 'Beyond the Plate: What the World Eats', based on Peter Menzel and Faith D'Aluisio's iconic photo series 'What I Eat: Around the World in 80 Diets', leads visitors through a photographic world tour of daily diets. The exhibition doesn't unfold like a gallery so much as a kitchen crawl—each photo a window into another rhythm of eating, another way of sharing sustenance and self. The exhibition feels like an open question: what do we share when we share food? Next door, The Corner Shop makes its comeback from May 14th to the 31st. Built in partnership with Al Ismaelia, the Downtown fixture returns with a warm-weather twist—scent-heavy and summer-lit. Drinks, made in collaboration with Quanta, lean citrusy and ice-cold, while the menu, curated by Crave Catering, pays loose tribute to local culinary institutions like Café Riche and Estoril. Less of a revival or a homage, more of a reply, a conversation. Powered by Juhayna, the activation strives to remind us that the future of food - if it is to be local, ethical, and enduring - must begin with those who make it, not just those who plate it.
