Conversations Overheard

•      Instructions to a taxi driver outside a hotel entrance…..“Take the direction of Hosni Mubarak’s house” (ie., the president of Egypt!)

•      In the lobby of the Intercontinental Hotel City Stars…. “Is that scarf you are wearing a chinchilla?”  “No, just a pretentious rabbit”!

ShEherazade Stories

The story of the iconic Groppi’s is a relic of pre-revolution Cairo of pre-World War II and in the 50’s – an atmosphere that can still be sensed in the faded grandeur that is today’s city.

Patrons who visited it as children can still recite the colours of the striped containers and colour-coordinated flavours of the famous Groppi’s ice cream, served from a refrigerated bicycle cart outside the Gezira Club.  Not to mention the chocolate Easter Bunnies!

In those days, Cairo boasted the best coffee shops and tea rooms of the Levant, had shops stocked with goods from Paris, Rome and London, and it was the norm to see patrons stepping daintily out of a Rolls Royce or Cadillac, for a hair appointment at Socrate, George, or to visit Climatianos for their exquisite men’s hats and ties.  Students from affluent families would visit Groppi’s or Locke’s, dressed to the nines, and ready to party.  Women patrons would frequently be seen in long evening dresses, and fur stoles – people-watching, to see and be seen!  Individual habitué patrons had their “own” tables – writers, poets, journalists….

And the jazz evenings were a favourite of General Montgomery, one of whose officers reportedly treated two captured German prisoners to tea at Groppi’s before turning them over to British intelligence! Indeed, at the time, Groppi’s was a favourite haunt of the international intelligence community.

This urbane image (and Brit clientele) made it a target for arson in 1952, and it narrowly escaped being burned to the ground by nationalist protesters.  The sound of the shattering glass windows and everything in the place being smashed up remains with those who saw it, to this day.  But, Groppi’s recovered, and again it became fashionable to breakfast there alongside pashas, politicians, artists and writers, though the secret police of the 50’s were known to periodically raid it, looking for leftist conspirators.

The patisserie, the chocolates, the marrons glacés and the jams were made in Groppi’s factory (still standing today complete with the original machines).  But, the processes were kept a strict secret, with only one phase of the process known to the staff responsible for each stage. So obsessive was the secrecy, that the recipes were all kept in French, which the employees did not understand.  Reportedly, when a Swiss-German was hired to run the factory, he had to learn French in order to read them!  The longest-serving Groppi’s employee, Mr. Ibrahim Mohammed Fadel, worked there for 60 years, remembering how the renowned author Naguib Mahfouz would stop by to read the newspapers.

With acknowledgements to Linda S. Heard, of the Daily Star newspaper, Cairo