Castello

Most visitors to Luxor say the Mama Mia at the Sheraton offers the best Italian food. It may do, but its prices are very high. The Castello has the chef from the Mama Mia, so the standards should be as good, but without the hotel price tag. As well as Italian, the Castello restaurant offers Egyptian and a limited English menu.

The restaurant opened in the summer of 2009 and its decor is still very fresh. The walls are a neutral magnolia, the ceiling mostly white with a design picked out in deep beige in the style found in a traditional Egyptian house. The Egyptian theme carries through to the lighting, based on multi-coloured chandeliers and wall lights and varnished wood high-backed chairs around good-sized tables. Table lined is red over white with matching cloth serviettes. Only the inevitable Coca Cola fridge, shielding the door to the toilets, disturbs the decor theme.

Just to the right of the door is the waiters' station, so you should be spotted when you walk in. More strangely, opposite the waiters' station, to the left as you enter the restaurant, is the oven. Meals are prepared 'out the back', but to be baked they are brought uncooked in to the restaurant and placed in the oven. The waiter is casually dressed but attentive. There was some criticism that there were service delays when the restaurant was busy, but the addition early in 2011 of Sue, an english lady, has strengthened the waiting team and will happily stop for a chat if you want.

The menu is in clearly defined sections. Starters and soups have their own pages, a good variety of pastas their own page, pizzas on another and other meat and chicken meals on others. Seafood, Egyptian food and vegetarian dishes also have their own pages. Soft and hot drinks are available but alcohol is not stocked. You can, however, ask the waiter for wine or beer and it will be sent for. A large can of local beer is LE20. Alternatively, pop in the restaurant and order alcohol earlier in the day and it will be ready for your meal.

Prices generally are very competitive, with soups from LE8, meat Tajines from LE33, vegetarian moussaka LE18, and all main courses include your choice of rice, potatoes, chips or salad. Most Italian dishes are well-priced too, with the possible exception of the pizzas which, at LE25 - LE50, mostly around LE40, are more expensive here than at many competing restaurants outside the hotels. Pasta meals are much less expensive and desserts are well priced at between LE12 and LE18. A large water is only LE7. Originally Castello served only Egyptian and Italian meals, but amongst the English meals to be added more recently is fish and chips at a favourable LE30. Refreshingly, the prices include tax and service charges, so you know where you stand without having to add these extras, which can increase bills at some other restaurants by 25%.

Variations on the menu standards can usually be agreed because the food is cooked to order. This takes a while but it is worth waiting for. The meals, especially the pasta ones, are excellent and the portions very generous.

The Castello is along the road opposite the Lotus hotel which is becoming famous for its restaurants. From the hotels road it is just past Deans and the Lantern, but before Snobs and Casablanca.

Restaurants in Luxor come and go, but this one is fine and deserves to be around for a while.

 

Review updated October 2011
Prices at October 2011
Tel: (002) (95) 2283679
Mobile 0101547824