Under the millennial shadow of the Pyramids, Khufu's culinary revolution ignites the global stage.
The Restaurant
A wind of gastronomic novelty is blowing from the banks of the Nile, specifically from Khufu's, the culinary outpost where the bold vision of Italian restaurateur Giovanni Bolandrini (creative mind and founder of Pier88 Group) and the mastery of chef Mostafa Seif are rewriting the rules of contemporary Egyptian cuisine. Their partnership, already enshrined by the title of Best Restaurant in Egypt and the prestigious fourth place in the “50 Best Restaurants in the Middle East and North Africa 2025” ranking , has now won further recognition: the Resy One To Watch Award, propelling Khufu's into the Olympus of the “50 Best Restaurants in the World 2025”. Over time, Bolandrini has shaped an experience that celebrates the sacredness of place, elevating Egyptian culinary tradition to new heights of refinement; after all, Chef Mostafa Seif -started from a street food cart in rural Egypt, then worked his way up to prestigious addresses in Cairo-had already achieved consecration as Top Chef Middle East in 2018.
"In 2022, when I was given the opportunity to open a restaurant inside the Giza Pyramids Complex, I asked myself: what can I do here? Obviously, I couldn't open an Italian restaurant: I wanted to give something back to the Egyptian people,", says Boldrini (born in Calabria, raised in Bergamo and flown abroad at just 20 years old) in this interview with the 50Best network. "My dream for Khufu's was to create a unique dining experience that combined the soul of Egyptian tradition with contemporary hospitality. I think everyone took me for a fool, saying, 'Here's the Italian again; first he wanted to revolutionize the Cairo restaurant scene, now he wants to revolutionize Egyptian cuisine.' But what I really wanted to do was to give both the locals and the rest of the world a reason to rediscover this ancient gastronomic philosophy." The entrepreneur actually has a lot of experience behind him in the fashion world in London, where he moved leaving Italy at a very young age; tired of the industry, he changed course in 2008, opening first Pier88 in El Gouna and then, in 2016, another location in Cairo.
With respect to the format, Bolandrini clarifies, “Many chefs are trying to go back to moms‘ cooking, but we did the reverse: we said to ourselves, ’Okay, let's take what our parents and grandparents used to make, but revisiting it in a fresher, lighter style. Our goal is to preserve all the traditional ingredients and techniques, but present them in a way that is more suitable for 2025." So, for example, koshari, a dish of rice, pasta and lentils compared by the Italian restaurateur to our “pasta and chickpeas,” in which the chef's balancing of spices makes all the difference. Not surprisingly, Mostafa Seif confesses that he introduced Bolandrini to the true homemade dishes of his homeland, those executed with age-old wisdom. Thus the owner of Khufu's changed his mind about a cuisine often considered too “heavy” in its street food or “commercial” version.
Of course, food is key, but hospitality matters just as much: "When people dine out, they want excitement, they want stories, and they want to feel good. It's about taste, of course, but it's also about atmosphere, kindness, and hospitality that create a good experience. You can offer the best food, but if you don't have a good story and people don't come, it's like building a cathedral in the desert,", Bolandrini concludes. Finally adding, “When you have the pyramids right in front of you, the energy is powerful. And it's our job to reproduce that same emotion on the plate."
