Restaurant review:
Sheikhdom flair
Obsessing about psaria in a place with an unlikely name
Sheikh Ali
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The oxymoron occasioned a faux pas. A tall blonde designer, a fine specimen of those who get away with things, didn't get away with this one. She phoned the directory and requested the number for Bar El-Sheikh Ali. The operator hung up, but first gave her a piece of her mind. The next operator was more helpful, because the woman had by then figured out the establishment's proper name: the Cap d'Or Restaurant in downtown Alexandria.
Sheikh Ali, who died in 1990, used to run errands for years for the previous owners of the place, three Frenchmen who started the Cap d'Or 70 or 80 years ago. When the nationalisation started, the patrons did their bit for the working classes. They left Ali in charge. Ali's sons, who still run the place, showed me pictures of their father in European attire, having a good time at the horse track, communing with celebrities. He was called sheikh because of his reputation for honesty, the sons say. Others say because he didn't open on Fridays (not true anymore). Photos of the horses Ali used to own still adorn the walls of the establishment, along with scenes of harbours, six old clocks, an old radio, a dead fox. Centre mirror behind the bar is a small drawing of a tiny naked woman resting on a human palm with the caption, "confiez-vous a la main d'un createur de mode" (trust yourself to the hand of a fashion creator).
The matchstick-thin sardines that go with the name of psaria (generic word for fish in Greek) are a definite but obsessive delicacy. They come heaped high in a small area, like the huddled masses, and you swallow them whole, like a tyrant. From there on, you are drawn by the wild horses of binge, riding atop the galloping tiger of obsession, sucked into the black hole of conquest, trapped in hostile neighbourhoods. Stop, turn back, step down, hand over the territory, or else. Crunchy as they are, sardines are oily creatures and, in excess, could be indigestive.
The other appetisers included pistachios, tuna and tahina and green salads. The red mullets tasted so fresh, you could only imagine them free and wet and swimming a few hours before the doors of gastronomic heaven opened. The night chef, Gouda, has been working in the bar for 40 years. He must have turned over some of his secrets to Emad, the morning chef, a lean and certainly deceptive fellow. His tagins of shrimp and calamari might as well have been cooked by a broad-hipped sharp-tongued mother-of-many with the wrong man and right career.
Behind the French doors next to the bar, there once was an adjoined grocery store. I have only encountered this arrangement once before, in a downmarket establishment in a small Central American village, and hope I might again. Decades ago, right across the arched art nouveaux door, customers would walk into the grocery shop, buy olives and cheese, and get back to their seats to consume them on site. The current co-owner takes me out, around the once grocery shop and points out the location of what used to be the top-notch Union Restaurant. This is where the rich and famous, the likes of Umm Kalthoum and Abdel- Wahab, once congregated. Some would later stop by for a drink at this very establishment, still a favourite hangout for movie stars, I am told.
The Cap d'Or was renovated earlier this winter, with a new dining room added to the back of the bar. Most of the floors were changed but thankfully not the small tiles with the brown rectangular pattern in the front. The music was a mix of Greek and reggae in the few languid afternoon hours we spent there. The service is what you expect from a family business, efficient and personal.
Food and drinks for six including tips came to LE400.
Open noon to dawn daily.
4 Adib Ishaq St. (walk on the left side of Saad Zaghlul heading towards Manshiya then turn left at Sofianopolus Cafe). Tel (03) 4875177.
By
Nabil Shawkat
