Accompanying the chefs were Mennat-Allah El Dorry, the Egyptologist and archaeology faculty member of Ain Shams University, and Heena Patel, part of Trèsind Studio’s operational team and an adept storyteller of the restaurant’s menus and culinary adaptations. At various stages throughout the evening, both took the floor to educate guests on certain recipes and timely courses, detailing the genesis and creation undertaken for each, and with a narrative backstory of home. And then a harp started, like a melodic lullaby, the notes lifted into the sky. It was a fitting addition to the evening’s proceedings and possibly a sign of things to come. It wasn’t Louis and his trumpet but romantically musical all the same, and a further extension of my dreamy Arabian fantasy.

The meal opened with introductions and a round of applause for the Khufu restaurant, which had recently been presented with the Hidden Gem Award by La Liste. The chefs then did their celebratory pirouettes to the guests before sprinting back to the kitchens to check on their plates. There was a definite sense of the cornucopia to dinner and the offer of plenty when plates began to arrive. The invited glitterati had come out to eat and spoil in the rarity of their surroundings; and the chefs, too, who were cooking in the presence of kings, as well as an ambassador or two.

The menu was comprised of snacks and meze with thankfully nothing too Old Kingdom communicated in hieroglyphics — although that would have been fun to witness, the guests scratching their heads while attempting to decipher mains. Instead, buns, tartlets, artichoke shawerma, crispy za’atar saj, blossom chaat, duck pastrami, smoked herring and kebab halla. And just when I thought it could not be any more geographically celebratory, a series of courses called “Pursuit of the West”, “Splendors of the South”, “Pharaonic Duck” and “Grandeurs of the North” were served.