New Cairo: El Gouna pizzeria Don Bisho opens at Garden 8

Don Bisho, the small Italian pizzeria that became a fixture of El Gouna, has opened in New Cairo. The new branch is at Garden 8 and is open every day from 10am to midnight, SceneEats reported on 26 October, so Cairo diners no longer need a trip to the Red Sea to try it.

Don Bisho belongs to Pier88 Group, the restaurant company Giovanni Bolandrini set up in El Gouna in 2008 and best known for its Pier88 restaurant on the town's lagoon. The group opened Don Bisho in El Gouna in May 2024 as a deliberately modest pizzeria: a small, Sicily-inspired room near the marina, seating only about 40 to 50 people at a time.

The New Cairo menu follows the original. It is built around pizza, with panuozzo (the stuffed, oven-baked sandwich from Campania), salads and hot and cold snacks, plus a breakfast menu for the morning hours. On its own website, Don Bisho lists six signature pizzas: Tartufo, Calabrese, Margherita, Mare e Monte, Bufalina and Bresaola, describing its style as Italian comfort food with warm bread and slow sauces.

The opening adds to a run of coastal and Sahel names moving into the capital this autumn, as New Cairo's compounds and open-air strips such as Garden 8 fill up with restaurants that built their following on holidays by the sea. Chicha, also from El Gouna, is building a branch at 5A, and several Sahel bakeries and burger spots have taken the same route in recent weeks.

Garden 8 is on the 90th Street side of New Cairo, and the branch serves from breakfast until midnight seven days a week. Prices for the Cairo menu have not been published, and the restaurant has not announced whether it takes bookings, so check its Instagram page, donbisho_, before you go if you are planning a group dinner.