Sofra Stories Alexandria Food Tour with 14+ Tastings

Alexandria has always looked outwards. Founded by Alexander the Great more than 2,300 years ago, this Mediterranean port grew into one of the ancient world's great trading cities, shaped over centuries by Egyptian, Greek, Levantine and Ottoman influences.


Our four-hour feast of 14+ tastings explores the Alexandria locals know best, weaving through bustling markets, old bakeries, historic cafés and neighbourhood institutions. Forget hotel buffets. This is lunch, Alexandrian style.

Before we get started, our tour reflects the local cuisine and the limitations of traditional eateries mean we unfortunately cannot cater for every dietary restriction. Here's an honest appraisal so nobody is disappointed:

✔ Suitable for no pork and halal diets.
⚠ Possible for pescatarians, lactose intolerance, mild nut allergies and no seafood diets, though some tastings will be unsuitable.
✖️ Unsuitable for gluten intolerance, vegetarian and vegan diets.

Like any proper Alexandrian feast, we'll begin with a shopping in the market for a table of grazing tastings. Warm baladi bread arrives blistered from the oven alongside green and black olives, sharp pickled vegetables, rich Egyptian cream, local cheeses, sticky black molasses, wild honey, earthy tahini and sweet dates. Tear, dip, scoop and repeat. From there we'll wander deeper into the old city, visiting specialists who have spent decades perfecting a handful of things. We'll taste crumbly halawa, where toasted sesame is transformed into something altogether more luxurious, followed by silky Egyptian rice pudding and fragrant semolina cakes dusted with cinnamon.

Next comes one of Egypt's great contributions to the art of putting meat inside bread - hawawshi. We'll watch skilled bakers stuff flatbread generously with minced beef, herbs and warming spices before sliding it into fiercely hot ovens. The bread emerges crisp and blistered, trapping all those smoky, meaty juices inside. Everyday food, perhaps, but dangerously easy to become obsessed with. Then we'll slow things down inside an almost century-old café, where little seems to have changed except the customers. Over glasses of ruby-red iced hibiscus tea, we'll watch locals battle over games of dominoes and put the world to rights. In Alexandria, the café has always been as much about conversation as what's in the glass.

Then the table starts to disappear beneath lunch. We'll tuck into tender Alexandrian-style beef liver stuffed into pillowy bread, followed by smoky lamb kofta fresh from the grill. Tomatoes and peppers meet the heat alongside vibrant pickled beetroot and the sharp, colourful accompaniments that turn a few dishes into a proper Egyptian spread. This is Alexandria’s food scene at its most local.

We'll finish with something considerably sweeter. First comes om ali, Egypt's gloriously indulgent baked dessert of pastry, milk and nuts, the country's answer to bread-and-butter pudding, only richer. Then we'll try sweet couscous with nuts and warm milk, the sort of comforting dessert that feels made for lingering over.
After 14+ tastings, Alexandria's history should look a little different. Most visitors search for the ancient city among ruins and museums. But its markets, bakeries, cafés and neighbourhood tables tell another story, one shaped by the Mediterranean and generations of Alexandrians who kept cooking long after the empires disappeared.