Karnal Cevicheria serves ceviche on a Nile felucca from Maadi
Chef Abdelrahman Mostafa's Karnal Cevicheria has taken ceviche onto the water: a set seafood menu served aboard a felucca that sails from the Maadi Corniche.
Karnal Cevicheria, a ceviche concept led by chef Abdelrahman Mostafa, is now serving its food on the Nile. Guests board a traditional felucca on the Maadi Corniche and eat a special ceviche menu while the boat sails, SceneEats reported on 7 November.
Ceviche is raw fish or seafood "cooked" in citrus juice, a dish with Peruvian roots that has been turning up on more Cairo menus over the past few years, usually in restaurants rather than on a boat. Karnal's version is built around a range of seafood ceviches, and the one SceneEats singled out is shrimp with mango.
Mostafa has cooked in kitchens abroad, including in Croatia and Mexico, and Karnal is his own project. The felucca format keeps it small: a sailing boat holds a few people at a time, so each sailing is closer to a supper club than to a restaurant service, and the menu is set rather than ordered dish by dish.
Feluccas are one of the cheapest and oldest ways to get on the Nile in Cairo, and Maadi's Corniche is one of the quieter stretches to sail from, away from the heavy boat traffic around Zamalek and Garden City. Pairing a sunset sail with a seafood menu is new for the area.
Karnal does not sail every day. Upcoming sailing dates are announced on Karnal's Instagram account, which is also where to ask about booking. Prices and the length of each sailing have not been published, so check both before you book, and ask where exactly on the Corniche the boat leaves from. Dress for the river: it gets cooler on the water once the sun goes down in November.