Cairo Food Week’s Hoda El-Sherif on stories, flavors, and community 

Hoda El-Sherif: There's also so much pride for the restaurant owners in seeing their chefs walk out of the kitchen, approach a table, and tell a story about a dish that they've created — and see people clapping, and applauding, and appreciating. 

It was really a pivotal moment.

———

Patrick Fitzpatrick: Before we get started — this week, we're celebrating the one-year anniversary of Morning Drive. 

It's our daily news show produced by the same team behind Making It, with a little bit of help from AI. 

Morning Drive is a great ten-minute rundown of the top news of the day, and I'm proud to say it's a one-of-a-kind experiment in business journalism. 

Morning Drive drops every weekday a little after 6 a.m. We'll leave a link in the show notes below.

———

Patrick Fitzpatrick: Every few weeks, I end up in some version of the same discussion about AI: what it takes from us as humans, what it gives us, our fears for our jobs and for our kids' futures, how we're using it in our businesses, and whether we're all going to get nuked so it can make more paperclips. 

I'm kind of tired of the debate, and I wanted a guest who I figured wouldn't have big feelings about AI. And who better than Hoda El-Sherif — the creator of Cairo Food Week, which kicks off next Thursday — I mean, there's no robot executive chef on the horizon, right? 

Well, guess what? 

Hoda’s got big opinions about AI. 

She trained as an interior designer. One day, she noticed something strange: the craft of making food look beautiful for a camera — a real profession standard in all the magazines she grew up reading — it just didn't exist.

So she sold her car, went to a top school in New York, learned the profession, came home, and more or less invented the job here in Egypt. 

Out of that, she built a studio called Flavor Republic with no outside money. And out of that studio, she built Cairo Food Week. You can think of it as a food festival, sure, but it's a festival with a thesis: the idea that Egyptian food belongs on the same table as the great cuisines of the world. The only reason we don't see it that way is something every Egyptian, Palestinian, or Irish person will recognize. It’s the legacy of colonialism. 

But that might be changing. 

In February, a restaurant at the foot of the Great Pyramids of Giza became the first Egyptian kitchen ever to top the list of the best restaurants in the Arab world.

Hoda thinks something is moving in Egyptian food, and she's spent four years building the stage for it. 

I want to talk to Hoda about whether Egyptian food is having a moment;I want to talk to her about what we talk about when we talk about food as an industry; and despite myself, I wind up talking with her about what she thinks about this AI moment that we're living through. 

All of us are bracing for the machines, and Hoda has spent her whole career doing two things that AI companies are going to struggle most with: how to get someone to put something in their mouth, and how to get them into a room to share it with other people. 

If you make things for a living, if you sell taste, and judgment, and craft and you're wondering what's next — or maybe you're just a big foodie — today's episode is for you.

And that’s the conversation. 

Hoda, welcome to Making It.

Hoda El-Sherif: Thank you. It's great to be here.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: Let’s start with, you know, canonical, classical Making It question: What do you do, and how do you make money?

Hoda El-Sherif: I head Flavor Republic, I head my company. 

What does Flavor Republic do? 

We started off in 2015 as a content creation agency, and now this vertical is called FR Content. 

The most popular of our brands right now are Cairo Food Week and When We Eat, and they belong to a sister company that we now call FR Ventures.

So Flavor Republic started off in 2015 as a content creation studio. 

In 2023, we decided that there was more to tell. We became so good at what we do at telling stories for brands, but we were not telling our story: our Egyptian story, the story of our food.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: What was the moment that made you realize that?

Hoda El-Sherif: So I'll take you back to the end of 2022. 

Sherif and I, Sherif, my business partner, were attending 50 Best MENA. I think it was the second edition. I think 2023 was the second edition. And we were in Abu Dhabi. 

We were having conversations with these very influential chefs who told the story of their local cuisine, their homes, lands, and ingredients. They were affecting how the world saw their countries, their foods, their cuisines, and how this spilled over into the economy and tourism of course.

And when I look back at my career, there's always this gap in the industry — some that excites me, you know that novelty of something that hasn't been done before — and having a food festival that celebrates Egyptian food at that point made sense. There were very interesting conversations that happened in Abu Dhabi, and we came back from the award ceremony knowing for certain that we needed to create something.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: Why food in the first place? Why food as a business? Why did Flavor Republic come into being? You could have created content about anything.

Hoda El-Sherif: Back when I started food styling around 2006 — and I studied art before that — and I think food was the medium I got interested in. It was the building element of what I was creating, not necessarily because I was interested in food, but because I was interested in the medium itself and how to build in food because it hadn't been explored. 

People were building elements in art, contemporary art, furniture, design, and fashion, but very few people were building concepts using food. Yeah I think that's what draws me back to food.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: What's your favorite thing to cook right now? Rapid fire.

Hoda El-Sherif: Ramen. Exploring.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: What type of ramen?

Hoda El-Sherif: Not quite sure, actually.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: Okay. Comfort food?

Hoda El-Sherif: Pizza. Every day, any day.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: Every day, any day. What's on top of the pizza?

Hoda El-Sherif: Anchovies 

Patrick Fitzpatrick: Controversial choice. 

Hoda El-Sherif: Black olives.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: Okay, so we like salt.

Hoda El-Sherif: Yeah. Very much.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: Who does the best pizza in Cairo?

Hoda El-Sherif: Pizza Thomas. What the Crust. Eatery.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: Alright. Favorite midnight snack?

Hoda El-Sherif: Uh. Cheese.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: Cheese? What type?

Hoda El-Sherif: Anything.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: Anything. Good choice. Favorite place to eat out in Cairo right now?

Hoda El-Sherif: Mmm. Tough question. I know too many restaurant owners, and for that..  

Patrick Fitzpatrick: If you leave one out, you're in trouble.

(laughes) 

Hoda El-Sherif: Yeah. 

Patrick Fitzpatrick: Favorite restaurant abroad, but in the region?

Hoda El-Sherif: Orfali Bros or Three Bros, yeah. 

Patrick Fitzpatrick: Favorite city abroad to go to for food?

Hoda El-Sherif: Lima.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: Lima? Okay, that ties back to a question I've got for you later. And the food city have you not gotten to yet?

Hoda El-Sherif: Tokyo.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: Mmmm.

Hoda El-Sherif: Soon. 

Patrick Fitzpatrick: You just made my daughter very happy; that's on her punch list right now. Why Tokyo? The ramen?

Hoda El-Sherif: The ramen and everything else. It's just notorious. It’s just one of the food capitals of the world, and I haven't been there yet so…

Patrick Fitzpatrick: Very cool. 

Alright, we're going to pivot now and start talking about more slow unpacking of things, okay? 

There is a universe where if you wake up in a compound in 6th of October and then wake up in a compound the next day in São Paulo or any other emerging market, they're going to look a lot alike, they’re going to feel a lot alike. 

We wear the same clothing from the same brands and designers. There's a homogenization of culture happening. It's kind of hard to homogenize food.

Hoda El-Sherif: Very hard.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: What is the role of food today?

Hoda El-Sherif: I think the differentiation. Highlighting the differences between people is the actual role of food. There's strength in differences, there's also diversity, but there's also a deep understanding of humanity, culture, and history. 

I truly believe food will continue to bring people together, but also, will create curiosity around people because experiencing food is instant. You don't necessarily need to travel to a country; you can go to a neighborhood restaurant that serves a certain ethnic food and you would be able to experience that culture and tradition through food and I think that is where its strength lies.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: So the question then: what is Egyptian food? What are we talking about when we talk about Egyptian food?

Hoda El-Sherif: That's one of the most difficult questions that I continue trying to answer.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: Why is it difficult?

Hoda El-Sherif: Because Egyptian food doesn't belong outside of the house yet. So what is Egyptian food? It's the food your mother cooks at home, the food you grew up eating in your house. 

And because that's very personal and changes from house to house, from region to region, it has not yet been defined on a global map or on a global scale.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: Do we need to define it globally, though? Every kid grows up eating Mulukhiyah, right?

Hoda El-Sherif: Yeah, but it helps the world understand it when it's defined, right? How would you connect with a country or culture if you're not sure what their food tastes like? 

You see their country in photos, you recognize the beaches and monuments, you hear their language, and you might be able to recognise where they come from. But it's only by tasting their food where you really connect with cultures and with people. 

I feel that's what Egyptian food is lacking. There are not enough chefs using these ingredients to create menus. 

When you look at the restaurant industry, there aren't enough chef-owners of restaurants. So the majority of the chefs are running their supper clubs or taking part in pop-ups, but there aren't enough chefs that are restaurant owners. 

Patrick Fitzpatrick: I'm coming over for dinner tonight. I am bringing my daughter, I am bringing my wife. We are sitting across from you and your family. 

What are you putting on the table for me?

Hoda El-Sherif: It would be one I will steal from a friend of mine, interior designer and architect Nehal Leheta. 

So she's got a Greek salad that she calls mish Greek salad — which is not a Greek salad, but uses mish instead of feta cheese.

So something along the lines. 

Patrick Fitzpatrick: Okay, so twists here and there.

Hoda El-Sherif: Mhm. Always.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: What's your signature dish?

Hoda El-Sherif: Do I have a signature dish? 

Patrick Fitzpatrick: Do you have a signature dish? 

Hoda El-Sherif: I think we'd have to ask my daughter.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: What would she say?

Hoda El-Sherif: Ummm… Oh, I make an amazing chicken casserole with dates and basically chicken thighs and then caramelized a little with the dates and date molasses as well, a lot of butter, and then cooked in a cast-iron in a Dutch oven basically for three hours.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: Chicken casserole with dates?

Hoda El-Sherif: Yeah.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: The hell? 

Hoda El-Sherif: It’s so good. Super Recipe. 

Patrick Fitzpatrick: Wow. 

Where do great Egyptian chefs come from?

Hoda El-Sherif: They come from all over Egypt. 

One story that stands out that I’ve heard is that Egyptian chefs that work in Italy and pizzerias do come from one particular small village in Al-Qalyubia. It's a craft that’s passed down through generations. 

It would definitely be on my list — to visit list —  definitely.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: Do I have to be of the place to make it?

Hoda El-Sherif: Interesting. Have I ever thought of that before? Yes.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: Really? So I've got to be of the place to make it? 

Hoda El-Sherif:  To truly make it? 

Patrick Fitzpatrick: Yeah.

Hoda El-Sherif: Yes. Unless you came from that village in Al-Qalyubia.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: In which case you're one hell of a pizza maker. But you don't have to be ethnically Italian to do great Italian.

Hoda El-Sherif: No, absolutely not.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: But you need to understand the basics: the terroir, the culture, the something.

Hoda El-Sherif: You need to have had a connection with what you're cooking — what the backstory is. 

I think the act of cooking is one of the most authentic acts. There's no faking it, there's no lying there. It involves also a lot of..

Patrick Fitzpatrick: It tastes amazing or it doesn’t. 

Hoda El-Sherif: Or it doesn’t. It’s a lot of people who put a lot of energy into creating dishes, and people don't think about that a lot. That's what makes bringing people together so special.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: I know that Suzanne [Zeidy] and Rawah [Badrawi] have a book coming out — actually by the time we release this episode, I think the book will be out, so they will take issue with that having combed the country for tradition — but where is the center of gravity of the food industry in Egypt? Is it very much Cairo-based, or is there cool stuff happening in, I don’t know where, Menoufiya?

Hoda El-Sherif: So Cairo is technically the melting pot, right. 

It's where people from all over Egypt arrive and bring their ingredients, their food traditions, their ways, and integrate. And this is why Cairo becomes a melting pot. 

Suzanne and Rawah’s book is made out of five parts. They explore recipes, ingredients, and the people behind them. From the mountain region — so Saint Catherine's and Sinai — and then the desert, which focuses a bit on Siwa. The river, obviously the source of life, then the sea, and the fifth part is Cairo. It's the last part of the book and I'm really excited. 

We actually have a book launch and a parallel exhibition happening in Cairo Food…

Patrick Fitzpatrick: At Cairo Food Week for the book, that’s awesome. 

Hoda El-Sherif: At the Grand Egyptian Museum  where a lot of contemporary artists are coming together to create beautiful installations inspired by Suzanne and Rawah’s journey.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: So if I wanted to have a great food experience outside of Cairo, what are three places I should go to?

Hoda El-Sherif: Alexandria, Esna, and Luxor. For me.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: Who should I go to, or what should I look to do in each of those places?

Hoda El-Sherif: So Alexandria: You would call Footnotes there. They’re a couple, they do culinary tours around Alexandria. We've taken a few of the chefs we've hosted to their experience, and they had an absolute blast. 

Esna: There's a restaurant called Okra, a women-led business — a women led business. The first women-led business in all of Esna, a very interesting story. 

Luxor: I would go to Al Moudira. They usually have very interesting resident chefs that work with local ingredients.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: What is your favorite cuisine outside of Cairo?

Hoda El-Sherif: Hmm. Seafood in Alexandria.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: Seafood in Alex? Still to this day?

Hoda El-Sherif: Still, yeah.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: My family used to do Seagull, and then Seagull burned to the ground. And the new Seagull ain't the old Seagull. Where do you go in Alex for seafood?

Hoda El-Sherif: Anywhere in Bahary. And then Gelati Azza after. 

Patrick Fitzpatrick: Nice. 

———

Patrick Fitzpatrick: So tell us about Cairo Food Week. What can we expect this year? What's the theme this year? How do you take this momentum — the growing interest in all things Egyptian, Egypt as a tourist destination, which by definition, if we want to improve our tourism product, we all agree it needs to improve, we need better food experiences — what's your role in that this year? Where do you see the year going?

Hoda El-Sherif: We’ve very casually — it's an insider term — we've called this year "The Homecoming," and it's about celebrating a lot of important Egyptian stories that are happening outside of Egypt. 

A few Egyptian chefs that are doing incredible things abroad, telling Egyptian stories or stories of ingredients; Suzanne and Rawah’s book; Egyptian restaurateurs that have made it for decades abroad but were not celebrated in Egypt and just recently opened a restaurant here; Paul Farag in Sydney, Meedu Saad in in London; and many more.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: They’re gonna be here? 

Hoda El-Sherif: Yeah, bringing them to Cairo.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: Awesome. 

And what's the format for folks who have never attended before? What do I actually get to do? We'll include in the show notes a link to the website and all the information that listeners need. But if you're sitting there thinking, "Is this what I do this weekend?” 

What do I get to do, and how long does it run for? Give us the rundown.

Hoda El-Sherif: Cairo Food Week is a festival, a calendar of events. Many are open to the public, some are private. It's everything from dinners to talks to exhibitions, and sometimes maybe a gala or two, maybe a film screening if we're lucky.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: What are three things that we shouldn't miss this year?

Hoda El-Sherif: I'm going to start with the exhibition at the Grand Egyptian Museum. It's an exhibition celebrating the launch of Suzanne and Rawah’s book that also brings together contemporary artists, some Egyptian and some international. 

Something that I wouldn't miss this year is a new format that we're bringing to District 5 by Marakez. It's some sort of street food promenade, bringing together chefs in a less performative, more casual format than the fine dining that sometimes Cairo Food Week has been used to in past years. 

We're bringing chefs to food trucks in the center of District 5, and it's going to be very exciting.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: And I can buy tickets to that?

Hoda El-Sherif: Yeah, absolutely.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: And the third thing?

Hoda El-Sherif: Downtown dinners. Definitely one very interesting one is going to be in Mazeej rooftop. And the rest I'm not sure…

Patrick Fitzpatrick: Not at liberty to talk about right now.

Hoda El-Sherif: Not right now but check the calendar.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: Check the calendar. All right. 

Our producer, Basant, has asked me to ask you: As a home chef, why should I attend, or what should I expect to get out of Cairo Food Week? How much of it is just a great food experience where I get to eat something wonderful, how much of it is I get to learn something new, and how much of it is a closed insider gathering for industry people? 

How should I view this as somebody who's just passionate about food in my home, cooking for the people I love?

Hoda El-Sherif: It's definitely a space to be exposed to new ideas. A lot of it happens around the table and with the guests, the people that come together that are gravitated toward this kind of festival. 

A lot of the feedback I get over the years is not just about the content of the dinner, but the people other people met around those tables. I think the value is bringing a community together — a community that is hungry for this kind of conversation — and I think very important parts of Cairo Food Week that we tend to forget when we look at the overarching calendar and what the content is and the actual events are, is that it is about the experiences that people encounter on the ground when they are attending the festival.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: So definitely open to a home chef.

Hoda El-Sherif: Absolutely.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: When you look back in a couple weeks' time, you've recovered from Cairo Food Week, it's over, "I can breathe" — what will determine for you if this was a successful week beyond ticket sales?

Hoda El-Sherif: Let me go back to how I felt last year after Cairo Food Week: that moment where you're scrolling through your feed and seeing all these international global publications sharing photos and articles about what happened in Cairo during that week. I think that's where it's really important for me to make sure that the stories live beyond our borders. 

We always use this term internally bas bel Arabi ya’ani el howa [but in arabic] “mesh ayzeen nekalem nafsena”, we want to stop.. 

Patrick Fitzpatrick: Yeah. Tell our own stories — tell other people. 

Hoda El-Sherif: We don't want to just tell our stories to each other and to ourselves. That's really important for us.

When we started Cairo Food Week, that first edition, we invited Massimo Bottura to come to Cairo to help us launch the inaugural edition of Cairo Food Week. 

Now for people that don't know who Massimo Bottura is, he's a chef that influences culinary conversations around the world. He's one of the most important chefs that have changed or affected economies and stories around how Italian cuisine has been perceived and changed. 

He really believed in the power of food bringing people together and food taking part in establishing a really strong identity for a country and a region.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: How important was it to have him there for you?

Hoda El-Sherif: When he said yes, everyone else said yes. He’s…

Patrick Fitzpatrick: He was the unlock.

Hoda El-Sherif: Totally. He really believed in what we were doing, and he has this ability to bring people together — to get all the other chefs to believe that this was the right moment for Egypt. And he was a lot of support. 

Also, his agent, Manuela, who's a very good friend of ours, contributed to bringing together a group of very influential chefs that shaped how food affected their own stories, regions, and identities. And they were all here together in Cairo that first year, telling their stories to our Egyptian chefs, our restaurants, and our public, and also sharing their experiences with the world and their following. It was very impactful.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: Can you draw our listeners a map of when we talk about food as an industry? You've been inside it for 20 years now. What is it? It's the restaurants, it's the farms... What does that industry look like?

Hoda El-Sherif: In Egypt — and maybe some elements are missing in Egypt, but I'm just going to take you through what it would look like anywhere. 

Patrick Fitzpatrick: Okay.

Hoda El-Sherif So sourcing: farmers, producers, importers. 

And then hospitality. So everything from hotels to hotel restaurants, to restaurants, to pop-up restaurants. 

The chefs, the dark kitchens.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: What's a dark kitchen?

Hoda El-Sherif: A dark kitchen is a facility that operates as the back kitchen or a kitchen of a brand, but would operates a number of brands.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: So like a rent-a-kitchen, effectively. 

Hoda El-Sherif: Yep. 

Patrick Fitzpatrick: You're going to produce my goods to my standards, package it my way, and then ship it out the door.

Hoda El-Sherif: It could be a space, a slot, or a timing. 

Patrick Fitzpatrick: A timing?

Hoda El-Sherif: Yeah.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: Neat. 

Hoda El-Sherif: So if you were, for example, a breakfast concept that only needs to operate for three hours in the morning, it would be way more efficient to work through a dark kitchen.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: Than to try to run your own.

Hoda El-Sherif: Mhm.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: So in the past few years, there is a certain strata of society that has looked around and said, "Not a lot of dollars in the market, not a lot of imports, I need to put my pounds to work — restaurants. Everybody needs to eat, we like to eat as a country, right?" So it's like a really easy industry to get into. 

How easy is the restaurant business?

Hoda El-Sherif: It's super hard. I think right now is a very interesting time for the food business, because there's one part that relies on technology, but you also see a lot of consumers gravitating toward more personal experiences: smaller restaurants, human connection, community-based spaces, and pop-ups. 

I think they both are as important to the food industry and to the restaurant industry specifically. Definitely also a rise in the number of Egyptian chefs that are telling very interesting stories, exploring their ingredients, bringing their stories to their pop-up dinners, to their supper clubs, and a lot of storytelling involved.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: That didn't exist a decade ago.

Hoda El-Sherif: It didn't.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: What's the story? Where did it come from?

Hoda El-Sherif: Again, the more technology advances, the more you're able to order a meal in 15 minutes, people equally want to engage, converse, and connect.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: Is there an origin story of that subsector of the industry bubbling up in Cairo?

Hoda El-Sherif: Definitely Karim Abdel Rahman. 

Patrick Fitzpatrick: Karim, yeah. Avec Karim. 

Hoda El-Sherif: First. But first of many right now.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: And what's a supper club?

Hoda El-Sherif: A supper club is a calendar, an activation, a group of people that come together. Might be a community. It could be theme-based, or chef-based, but definitely experience-led.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: And a supper club is a private thing, like a business thing, or a community of people? Me and my four best friends?

Hoda El-Sherif: I could have a supper club with my friends where we agree on a certain day of the week or month where we all gather, and that would qualify as a supper club. 

But commercially, the term is used when a community of people gather around food, whether initiated by the chef or by the community. 

As it stands in Cairo, a supper club is a business, mostly chef-led, not community-led.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: Not community-led, okay. 

Hoda El-Sherif: Mostly.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: We're in the midst of this sort of AI mania right now. You previously used in a discussion we had the example of the oven. 

That in 1843 when the stove was brand new, a writer looked at it and declared that this was the end of humanity, or at least the end of civilization, that we would no longer gather in the kitchen and celebrate meals, occasions, and food and break bread together. 

I don't think that happened, as anybody who has been summoned to their mother-in-law's table on a Friday afternoon knows. 

But is the panic we're going through today at all analogous to that?

Hoda El-Sherif: The need to be human, the need to gather, is still there. It's never going to change. I'm not afraid of AI — on the contrary, I think it's very exciting. I think it it enables us to be selective with our time, work more efficiently and smartly, but also, the most important part of learning how to use it and when to use it is to enable it to give us more time and space to connect with our core values as humans, like what keeps humanity alive. I think a constant and conscious focus on that is the right balance.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: Do you worry about what it takes away from the business?

Hoda El-Sherif: I think about that a lot, especially with the team. We've decided to use it ethically, especially coming from an industry that really empowers and grows talent, creativity, and art. So we're very conscious about how we use it and when we use it. 

We're aware that it might replace the executors, but as we continue to empower and enable our teams, we focus on the thinkers and empowering the thinking over the execution.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: What does that mean in practice? What is the execution, and what is the thinking?

Hoda El-Sherif: If you create a photoshoot, you're creating a photo. But for that photo to be relevant, impactful, and stand out from the clutter is really the thought process that goes behind the campaign, and why it becomes objective, impactful, meaningful. 

So we put a lot of weight on that process to come together, for that thought to come together, and for creative ideas to emerge from these conversations. That's where we hold value.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: The thinking and bringing it all together. 

Hoda El-Sherif: Yeah

Patrick Fitzpatrick: Coca-Cola took it on the chin for their ad a couple seasons ago. There are stories about how humans can tell which tomatoes are AI tomatoes, or the bagel shop owner who looked at photos of bagels and said, "There's something creepy about this. That's not my bagel." 

Do you think humans have this fundamental ability to see and understand what is an AI-generated thing in food versus other fields?

Hoda El-Sherif: I think it's the same way humans evaluate locally sourced versus ingredients that have flown across continents. It's the same way we evaluate ethically sourced. 

I think it enables us to become more selective about what we consume — the content we consume, the food we consume, the type of brands we engage with.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: What does AI do for Flavor Republic, do you think, five years down the road that you can't do today? What changes about the business in a great way?

Hoda El-Sherif: This is a question we continue to discuss. 

I think we become more efficient. Scalability is something to consider — we're able to take on more jobs from clients... Especially in content creation — I mean, this hasn't changed in decades, it is time-consuming: production, filming, taping, editing, designing. 

Patrick Fitzpatrick: Practically, what do you guys use it for today?

Hoda El-Sherif: A lot of problem-solving — shots that we've forgotten or are not working, where we need to fill in the blanks. 

We're still not creating fully in AI, but we're using AI to fill in the blanks. Additionally, we use it to fledge content: creating an original piece of content and fledging it across many different formats.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: Chop it off for Instagram, or turning it into a print thing.

Hoda El-Sherif: Also an incredible research tool. Personally for me as a creative, because I tend to sometimes procrastinate ideas—

Patrick Fitzpatrick: A creative who procrastinates? 

Hoda El-Sherif: Oh my God. 

Patrick Fitzpatrick: I've never heard of such a thing. 

Hoda El-Sherif: It helps narrow down thoughts, even connect them to past ideas and bring them all together.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: What tools do you guys use?

Hoda El-Sherif: For design, we use Claude. For brainstorming, we use ChatGPT.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: Really? You separate the two? Why do you separate the two?

Hoda El-Sherif: They're different. Claude is really strong for design. ChatGPT is a bit too synthetic, let’s say.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: Have we managed to beat the italics out of Claude? It loves using italics for emphasis and headlines.

Hoda El-Sherif: I think we have. I think we have.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: Good for you. Good for you. 

———

You've spent your whole life in food, but you don't own a restaurant, but you've got this bird's-eye view. 

If you want to look beyond restaurants, where's the white space in the industry for somebody who wants to get involved in food without having to take the risk of owning a restaurant and accepting single-digit margins?

Hoda El-Sherif: It would be in education. 

As the industry is growing, there's a huge opportunity. Regardless of the economic situation and challenges, people are still eating out — they're just being more selective, really aware of value. So I would say the market maybe is saturated. I know concepts are still emerging, but smaller concepts.

So something very interesting that’s happening — Sahel — the North Coast of Egypt performs as a testing ground for these brands.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: Every summer.

Hoda El-Sherif: Every summer. 

Patrick Fitzpatrick:  And then you see who comes back and establishes themselves in Cairo. 

Hoda El-Sherif:  Exactly, also El Gouna is another interesting testing ground — not as seasonal, but—

Patrick Fitzpatrick: Really? I've never seen El Gouna that way.

Hoda El-Sherif: Yeah, but now you see a lot of El Gouna homegrown brands that have…

Patrick Fitzpatrick: Have come to Cairo, true. 

Hoda El-Sherif: Come to Cairo. But again, not enough educational establishments that are...

Patrick Fitzpatrick: I was going to say, what’s education? Is it growing the next generation of chefs, growing that generation of servers? What's the opportunity in education?

Hoda El-Sherif: So hospitality is a big umbrella. Chefs definitely, but also service staff. There's so much opportunity there.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: How do most chefs get into the industry today, if not through formal education?

Hoda El-Sherif: Through working their way up in commercial kitchens.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: That's it. An apprenticeship, on-the-job training. 

Are we going to see or are we seeing now being in the kitchen become something that is more socially accepted to a middle-class or upper-middle-class Egyptian? 

Is that changing, or is there still that stratification where at the very elite end you have your Karims, and on the other hand, it's guys and gals from villages who are the line staff on the other hand?

Hoda El-Sherif: I think this is changing so fast. 

One of the things that we used to advocate to restaurants or partners is what we used to call "open up your kitchen." It was kind of a theme. It was a first for many restaurants to have their chefs on a poster advertising a dinner. Many people didn't know the names of the chefs at their favorite restaurants. 

But four years later, we see a lot of change. These chefs are taking part in global and regional collaborations. Restaurants are flying their chefs to other cities around the region to collaborate with other restaurants. You see their names, they start to take part in conversations, talks, and podcasts. I think that's a huge change in a very short time.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: Big change, yeah. What catalyzed the change? Cairo Food Week?

Hoda El-Sherif: Cairo Food Week for sure, yeah.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: Exposing them to international caliber.

Hoda El-Sherif: Absolutely. And also celebrating their wins, their food, and their brands. There's also so much pride for the restaurant owners in seeing their chefs walk out of the kitchen, approach a table, and tell a story about a dish that they've created, and see people clapping, applauding, and appreciating. 

It was really a pivotal moment.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: What's the next step in that evolution?

Hoda El-Sherif: I don't know how I feel about awards and accolades. I'm still trying to navigate..

Patrick Fitzpatrick: Enterprise is almost 12 years old, and we've never given out an award or done a ranking, so that tells you how we feel about it.

Hoda El-Sherif: But I understand the value it can bring to someone, a business, or a narrative like Egyptian food.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: It aids in discoverability. 

Hoda El-Sherif:  Exactly. We've seen what it did for Mostafa Seif and Khufu’s, and I think we will continue to do what we can to push more Egyptian chefs into a global spotlight.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: So does this mean that you guys are considering Cairo Food Week or Flavor Republic launching a ranking?

Hoda El-Sherif: I think the term "ranking" is what stops us. When you bring ranking to the table, it becomes a competition, and I don't think it's about who is at number one and who is at number ten. 

What's more interesting about the platforms that give accolades and awards, like Michelin and 50 Best, is that they become food guides to the countries and regions that they are present where they are present. That's where the value is for Egypt. It's as you mentioned before; the discoverability. 

As we continue to promote Egypt as a tourism destination, it is important. It is also important for recognizing the great stories that we have. Having a credible platform that people can rely on for information and recommendations , but less so for the competition aspect, ranking, or awards.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: A sense of, "If I go here, I will have a good meal." 

Hoda El-Sherif: Yeah.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: I can only imagine how difficult it is for a tourist, because even living here, the scene changes so quickly. There are so many places you never get to — is it good, is it still good this year, has it changed? So a recommendation that would be annual, maybe?

Hoda El-Sherif: It also creates a driver for businesses to continue to pursue staying on that list, being credible, or being relevant.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: But you walk into any restaurant in a tourist area of North America, and as soon as you walk in the door, they're advertising: "We are on the Best Places to Eat Guide of X, Y, or Z." It's a distinguishing feature, I hope for someone like you something that those restaurants are willing to pay a little bit of money to be allowed to use that brand, right?

Hoda El-Sherif: Or the tourism board.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: The tourism board.

Hoda El-Sherif: One day! 

Patrick Fitzpatrick: One day. One day. 

Hoda El-Sherif: It's coming. It takes creating an entire ecosystem for it to come together, so baby steps, right?

Patrick Fitzpatrick: There's a restaurant in New York called Rao's with ten tables. Really hard to get into, you can't get a booking. Allegedly pretty good food — never been there myself. 

The family made its money not from the ten-seat restaurant, but because Campbell's came along and said, "We're going to turn your spaghetti sauce into Rao's." 

What is that thing from Egyptian cuisine that we're going to put into a jar and build a business around, if you had to bet?

Hoda El-Sherif: It would be duqqa.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: Why?

Hoda El-Sherif: Because duqqa is a spice mix that changes from family to family, from home to home. It becomes iconic of who you are and where you came from. 

I think what we would do very well exporting is an ingredient or an Egyptian food staple, but with a story, because stories are really important. 

Patrick Fitzpatrick: Stories are so important, yeah. 

Hoda El-Sherif: People connect with stories. It's not about one more spice mix that’s on the shelf; it's about a spice mix with an origin story that will differentiate it from any other spice mix.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: South Korea spent $77 million of government money for everything, including a billboard in Times Square, to try and promote South Korean food. It kind of went nowhere until along comes K-pop, along comes Squid Game, and suddenly everybody loves gochujang sauce and has to put it on everything. 

Thailand has given out for decades small business loans to expats around the world to establish Thai restaurants, thinking it will tie back in. 

And then there's Peru, where Gastón Acurio, a chef, created one festival, and within 15 years of him creating that festival and doing it over and over, you suddenly have more Peruvian restaurants in the World's 50 Best than there are Parisian restaurants. And Peruvians had been taught for decades — generations — that their native food was just not fine dining — European food is fine dining, maybe Japanese food is fine dining, but Peruvian food? Not so much. 

How much does that play into your story?

Hoda El-Sherif: The first year of Cairo Food Week, we hosted one of the very important chefs who was there with Gastón Acurio — Micha. 

During that first edition of Cairo Food Week, he hosted a dinner with Baky Hospitality. I remember having a conversation right after that dinner where he said, "What we achieved in 15 years, with this community that I just met tonight, you can achieve in five." 

The second year was the first year that a Peruvian restaurant won number one on the World's 50 Best — it was Central in Lima, Peru. That was the same year we hosted Central in Cairo for a dinner in the second edition of Cairo Food Week. 

Patrick Fitzpatrick: Very cool. 

Hoda El-Sherif:  Also Virgilio Martínez, the owner and head chef, was here hosting a dinner at the Grand Egyptian Museum, second year in a row after Massimo's. A lot of these iconic chefs said the same: "We have the community, we have the story, we have the history, we have the people” — all we need is a little bit of government support on board to really become a national movement and a national objective.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: What does that government support look like?

Hoda El-Sherif: I don't want to say we don't have government support at all, because government supporting the private sector is new, but it's happening. You can imagine every chef flying in with 14 suitcases of food that first edition, where they were not very—

Patrick Fitzpatrick: The heads of customs agents just exploded. 

Hoda El-Sherif: And we went to the tourism board and communicated that that was one of our challenges — this was one of my deepest fears: the life or death of the festival relied on...

Patrick Fitzpatrick: Their ingredients getting seized at the border. That's not going to go well.

Hoda El-Sherif: Exactly. And then it was the smoothest sail from then on until this day. Government support is there, endorsements are available. But because the entire ecosystem of cultural activations and cultural programming, as we call it, is new to us and to the private sector, there are a lot of festivals promoting different verticals of Egyptian culture that require a lot of support from the government. 

The challenge for the government is the allocation of funds: we're still guilty of spending on entertainment and the fancy approach to things, not yet on archiving our stories, our food identity, and our food culture. As we continue to promote that, we will get more support.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: What is the one project that you'd want to see them fund that would make the most difference?

Hoda El-Sherif: Right now, the documentary about koshary.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: What's the documentary about? Tell us about that. 

Hoda El-Sherif: So Patrick, I don't know if you know, but this year it has been inscribed within UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage as the first Egyptian national dish. So we've received an endorsement from the Ministry of Culture to create a documentary about the story of koshary. 

We've started working on the storytelling and research, and they've provided us with a body of research they used for pitching it to UNESCO. It's in the process, of course. It's easy for us to raise funds for events and entertainment, but it becomes harder when it's for archiving. I think there's a crossover between what the government can provide and where the private sector's interest lies. That's a challenge we continue to face in this growing ecosystem. 

We're getting there, but it's one of the challenging projects to raise funds for, for sure.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: Our Egyptian audience definitely understands koshary, but for folks listening who are not Egyptian or haven't had the pleasure of koshary, what is koshary?

Hoda El-Sherif: Koshary is the most democratic Egyptian dish there is. It's a vegan dish, the dish of the common Egyptian. One of the most beautiful aspects of koshary is that the personalization of your mix is endless. 

There are people who prefer lentils more than chickpeas, people who won't have tomato sauce on top, and I've heard stories about people adding tuna to it.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: What? I think that's probably sacrilege, right? Tuna?

Hoda El-Sherif: Yeah, tuna. Actually, it was Moustafa Seif’s story.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: No way. 

Hoda El-Sherif: Yeah, I think. 

Patrick Fitzpatrick: Wow. 

Hoda El-Sherif: Yeah. So koshary is one of the most interesting Egyptian dishes: every house makes it differently, every street cart makes it differently, and people pick and choose what they want in their dish. I think that's what makes it so specialv—vthere is no one way to eat it.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: And what's the origin story?

Hoda El-Sherif: I don't want to reveal too much because the script and storyline of the film are so interesting.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: No way.

Hoda El-Sherif: But there's no origin story.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: There's no origin story?

Hoda El-Sherif: That's the most interesting part.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: All right, so someone listening out there has to cough up the funding to make this happen. I want to know the story.

It really strikes me that a lot of what you folks are doing is something a tourism board would do in another country, and yet you are a private-sector business carrying this on your balance sheet and income statement. 

You've got to be profitable. How does that strike you?

Hoda El-Sherif: How do we do it? 

Hoda El-Sherif: Yeah? 

Patrick Fitzpatrick: What we do — which is our cheat sheet, basically — is we try to partner with brands that understand our need to do that.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: So they get the mission.

Hoda El-Sherif: They get the mission. They're like-minded. They will put in that extra here and there for us to be able to document and tell stories further than just the commercial project. One of those incredible partners are Marakez. Dasha and Ashraf strongly believe in what we do and are incredible supporters. 

Patrick Fitzpatrick:  Great guys, yeah. 

Hoda El-Sherif: So last year and again this year at Ramla and a couple of other North Coast destinations, we are bringing interesting chefs with great stories, some iconic chefs from all over the world. We make sure that we highlight their stories, our culture, their interaction with our locals, our ingredients, what they champion, and how that affects us. This is a really important part of our process. We carry this responsibility not just because no one else is doing it, but because it is part of what we believe — for us, for our business, for the region, and for the people we promote and support. The chefs, and the communities, and the restaurant industry.

Patrick Fitzpatrick: Hoda, thank you so much for your time today. It's been awesome having you.

Hoda El-Sherif: It's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you.