Trianon Café

Alexandria's most famous belle-époque café, on Saad Zaghloul Square. The Trianon was the city's smartest place to be seen in the 1910s and 1920s, and the interior still has the look — carved wood, mirrored walls, gilded plasterwork, marble tables. The food has slipped — it is now an unremarkable Egyptian-European hotel restaurant — but the cake selection at the patisserie counter has held up.

Visit for coffee and a slice of mille-feuille or a fresh-from-the-oven gateau, or for an after-dinner espresso when the lights are on. Skip the formal menu. The café's high windows look out on Saad Zaghloul Square and the corniche beyond — the best people-watching seat in central Alexandria. Open from breakfast through late evening.

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A story
Trianon opened in 1905 and quickly became the most fashionable cafe-restaurant in cosmopolitan Alexandria — a meeting place for the city's Greek, Italian, French, and Levantine bourgeoisie. The poet Cavafy was a regular; he reportedly drafted poems on the cafe's wooden tables. The interior is largely unchanged: dark-wood panelling, marble-topped bistro tables, Art Nouveau plasterwork on the ceiling, and a small string ensemble that still plays at lunch and tea times on some days.

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