IT'S ABOUT TIME

Perhaps now more than ever, a visitor to Cairo experiences the metropolis through its layers of history. The opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum, which will house the world's largest collection of Egyptian antiquities, is prompting the most international buzz, but other areas are quietly glowing up, too, offering a thrilling juxtaposition between the city's rich past and dynamic present

- By Nicola Chilton | Photographs by Connor Langford

Clockwise from this image: Designer Omar Chakil with one of his modern canopic jars rendered in alabaster onyx; the concept store and art gallery Cairopolitan ; sisters Aya and Mounaz Abdel Raouf, founders of Okhtein; coffee at Mazeej Balad hotel Opposite page: Cairo's skyline, with the Pyramids of Giza in the distance

IT'S A WARM TUESDAY EVENING in April, and Mazeej Balad's rooftop restaurant is packed with well-dressed Cairenes eager to experience the neighborhood's newest arrival. Kareem Nabil and Ahmed Ganzoury, the Egyptian duo behind the recently opened Mazeej Balad boutique hotel, welcome guests and pose for photos before we sit down for a dinner of koshary arancini and pickled lemon hummus. They are the force behind some of Egypt's most glamorous parties and events, as well as a handful of hot spots like Kiki's Beach, an oceanfront club on the country's North Coast, the Mediterranean-facing sweep west of Alexandria where the summer party scene is beginning to rival that of Mykonos. But with the bijou Mazeej Balad, Nabil and Ganzoury have turned their attention firmly to the capital.

The hotel is located on a frenetic Cairo street where dented taxis vie for space with men on bicycles balancing trays of flatbreads on their head. Mazeej Balad's doorman, in a red jacket and jaunty bow tie, cuts a dashing figure at the hotel entrance. Behind him a burgundy carpet flows over a marble staircase like spilled wine, guiding guests into the 129-year-old building that once housed the H {C3} Tel-Pension Viennoise and an embassy of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.