#Egyptian literatures
![](https://egyptianstreets.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Cafe-Riche-newsweek-730x304.jpeg)
Café Riche is a cozy temple for the initiated: strangers gather in clusters, exchange book briefs under an undated photograph of Um Kalthoum, and sip sugared, home-brewed tea. There’s an air of knowing, maybe even intrigue; from revolutionaries to renegades, Café Riche has hosted some of Egypt’s greatest thinkers and sweetest songbirds for over a century. And it has always been this way: select, alluring, enigmatic. As one of Cairo’s most infamous spots, Café Riche was established in the early…