KAIRÓS Supper Club

Yasmine Altawdy
Jul 25, 2017 · 16 min read

“Consulting, catering and cooking classes for professionals and amateurs. With Kairós Catering, owned and managed by Francesca D’Amico, private customers, professional clients, or organizations can enjoy the freshness and expertise of the cuisine in the comfort of their own surroundings. Once the made-to-measure menu has been selected and agreed upon, Kairós will pre-prepare its culinary creations on location, providing quality food, freshly prepared for catering on the big day.”

Kairós Supper Club Catering

Kairós Catering handles dinners, official parties, company receptions, cocktails, and vernissages, whether you require just the food, or the additional in situ services of our team of professionals.

Consulting

With our Kairós Consulting service, we work alongside our clients to bring their serviette idea to fruition during that crucial period before the doors open for the first time.

We provide advice on how to set up a kitchen and all aspects of materials, operations, hygiene and safety, supported by the best distributors in the sector.

Our menu is a blend of local gastronomic trends and cuisine. Our use of quality regional products ensures both parties benefit financially too.

And last, but most definitely not least, we take care of the essential ingredient of any kitchen: the personnel. We seek out and select effective and professional serving and cooking staff, as well as training chefs in techniques to give their creations that special touch.

Cooking classes

There is even more to smile about: Kairós can also teach you to cook. You can fulfill your culinary ambitions in a relaxed and pleasant atmosphere with no prior experience required.

Through our classes, you can learn menu creation, preparation techniques and some tricks of the trade, as well as going that one step further with our specialized courses on sweets and desserts, preparing vegetables and meats, as well as buffet organization.

We can still be there in spirit even if you feel like inviting your friends round for a lovely meal. From recipes to products, Kairós can put virtually everything on a plate, leaving you to put on your best chef’s hat and do the rest.

Email: hello@eatkairos.com

www.eatkairos.com/

Yasmine: So how did you come to Egypt Francesca?

Francesca: We arrived for the Swiss embassy. My husband works for the Swiss Embassy

Yasmine: Doing what?

Francesca: Covering the political sector, human rights, and political developments.

Yasmine: So how did you get interested in cooking?

Francesca: So the story is that when I was very young, my father and I went together for the Cordon Bleu program in Rome. I’m from Rome. And then I was very young, so it was fun because we had teachers and then we had homework at the French Cordon Bleu section in Rome, then we passed the exams. It was serious with French cuisine techniques. Then I studied — my career was something else –

Yasmine: What did you study?

Francesca: I studied philosophy, but then when I was thinking recently I thought I had to think about my personal life and so I studied philosophy in particular doing the PhD for a long time on a magical recipe book because this philosophy was a renaissance, humanism renaissance, so this book was a recipe book in several fields but to protect the health of the philosopher.

Yasmine: So it’s a health conscious recipe book?

Francesca: One part it is. Let’s say there is the psychological part, a magical part and a very practical part of recipes, to protect the philosopher in order to be health conscious, to pursue the search for truth. So how could a philosopher stay in good health to continue the search for truth and it was also a spiritual, religious, psychological way to attain heaven, now we would say nirvana back then it was to reach God and wisdom. So it was exciting.

Yasmine: So it was a philosophical pursuit from your side, there’s more to food for you than the cuisine, the preparation, the decoration, the food, the ingredients, there’s a philosophy behind it.

Francesca: Well actually that was part of the job. Another part of the job I made a conversion in heritage management so I was going to work in Mali, Vietnam etc. and then there was always this good feeling whenever families, locals around the table were in a good mood, people were happy, people were talking, you have this relaxed ambience to talk and to make agreements etc so to set up continuous team building. So that was my idea then when my father retired 15 years ago, he had this passion for cuisine and he opened a restaurant thinking he will open six months like for a summer and then he realized that the law allows you just to open six months plus one day, then he discovered to have these clients you have to stay open throughout the whole year so I helped him to build up the concept.

Yasmine: So you got interested in food at a very young age?

Francesca: So there was food first, and then university and all the rest at the end.

Yasmine: And then you came back to food.

Francesca: And then I came back to food thinking after the adventure of the restaurant that was very good , we have this Gambero Rosso, the equivalent of the Michelin guide but Italian, with restaurants and trattoria sections, local traditional even if it is a little potato place and then we entered the two Gambari because it’s called Gambari-

Yasmine: Gambari in Egyptian means prawns.

Francesca: Yes it is because the guide book is called Red Prawn. It is the best quality of prawns we have, so we entered with two prawns. So working there I thought I’m happy, I’m happy to be in the preparation side, I’m happy to be with the clients and then to make them happy, feeling special When I go to a restaurant I adore having a surprise and the waiter has this power to make you really happy, little things, in special restaurants, even maybe sometimes very simple restaurants, but then you have this small attention, I don’t know something that makes you feel happy. So in Switzerland I opened a catering company then when coming here I thought about the name and called my company “Kairos, feed your happiness” and Kairos in Greek means a good moment, it’s not the carpe diem but it’s a good moment to enjoy something, to appreciate the moment, totally different from the carpe diem though.

Yasmine: So how did you start your company?

Francesca: I started it in Switzerland but then in Cairo it was just, it worked very easily, I started with Egyptians very soon.

Yasmine: You have an Egyptian partner?

Francesca: No. But I will be associated to a group who has of course an Egyptian partner, we are getting through this. And so it’s a society and one partner. Yes, I think one partner but now we are in the process of doing it with one Egyptian person and Italian and then so very easily, as soon as the container arrived basically I started a consulting project for the Italian embassy and I got into the Italian diplomatic circles and the project with the embassy was very long so I stayed with them very long. Still I continue overseeing and following up but they didn’t have any representation so the fact that the ambassador had the obligation to see people, have working dinners, parties and delegations, all chefs and staff and the political lunches, this is the representation. And so we built everything from zero, we designed the kitchen with an engineer, hired the people, trained them, prepared the menu, recipe and then supervised all the events. Now I just go for the beginning.

Yasmine: And you manage the big events?

Francesca: Yes, let’s say 100, 200, last year we had the National day and we were 1,200 and I was the only girl between 35 waiters and eight chefs and this is not easy. It’s not easy with the chefs but I love the team, I hired them but then you have a woman in the kitchen and you have the chef who goes smokes a cigarette and then after that it was not a big success. The first episode of the cigarette we sat down and talked about stopping it and they understood it was for them to secure their employment and then and we developed a wonderful relationship and I adore working with them.

Yasmine: So things turned around.

Francesca: Yes easily because once they trust you then it goes well but still am often confronted yesterday I had the team for the supper dinner and all men and the ego up to here, but it’s a very interesting experience.

Yasmine: So what inspires and motivates you in a kitchen?

Francesca: Good product.

Yasmine: What do you mean by good product? Food or the machine?

Francesca: No the food, good product and I’m so happy that in Cairo there are amazing products, amazing vegetables, passionate people who give the best they can and so good product and beautiful products. What motivates me is to create something that makes you feel happy. It’s healthy, good looking, feeling that there is someone that cares for your eating. This is what I like. I like when I go to a restaurant I like to have this feeling of someone cooking for me.

Yasmine: So this is what inspires you and motivates you in a kitchen when you put your effort, you put your care, you put your attention into it.

Francesca: Then the challenge, for example yesterday we had 102 people for the supper club. I didn’t know how many people there would be because it was a Facebook event and then in the Swiss club so it was friends and friends of friends, but that’s the challenge. I studied the menu that I never cooked before. Of course I have to try it before and to adjust it, that’s the challenge but otherwise it’s getting boring.

Yasmine: Boring? Because you’ve cooked everything?

Francesca: No because for example of course I was in the group of Italians and they’re obliged to offer their guests Italian cuisine, so I was confined to Italian and now I’m happy with different things.

Yasmine: What’s your favorite cuisine?

Francesca: Latin Mediterranean but something that has colors, good taste and then I’m Italian, this kind of cuisine, and then the souvenir of course, some flavors and spices. One part of my family comes from the East; my grandmother was Armenian so we had spices and couscous.

Yasmine: And if you weren’t a Chef what would you be doing?

Francesca: Organizing events around food (she said through laughter) Food is my passion yes.

Yasmine: It doesn’t look like you eat anything though.

Francesca: (laughs) No I do but. Ah! Food hunting that’s another thing. There was a food hunter, something that combines food and travelling, it’s my real dream, it’s people who are travelling the four corners of the world to these villages in India or wherever to find this spice or whatever. I saw a documentary about this food hunter it was so fascinating to find the tea, good quality of tea. I’d like to be behind the sell, I mean choosing products and to be a food hunter.

Yasmine: A food hunter. And where do you purchase your food from here?

Francesca: Here? I can’t give names but I use real organic products as much as possible because you find the freshness and the cut and then yesterday I used flowers and it was simply amazing, the quality is fabulous, it was great. Fabulous. I also work for Gourmet and I get the meat from there and the fish, still I don’t know. Big problem

Yasmine: Fish you haven’t decided yet?

Francesca: No, I don’t cook a lot of fish, I didn’t find what I like, I use just calamari sometimes but I still haven’t found a good place to buy fish, good fish. I buy the frozen from Gourmet and the quality is very good but I like fresher, I adore shells, everything that comes with it, but here it is difficult.

Yasmine: What would you like to eat after working a long night working at a restaurant?

Francesca: Now the crazy thing I’m into is peanut butter. Yesterday I worked, I couldn’t eat, then I came back home and I made a beautiful sandwich with this bread with chamomile and flowers and peanut butter that I just discovered at 44 years, my daughter started with the peanut butter two months ago and it’s my second month with this peanut butter adventure.

Yasmine: What are five things that you always have in your kitchen?

Francesca: Basil, good olive oil, red pepper which is not hot but it gives a very nice aroma, egg plant I adore it in my kitchen. I adore it here in Egypt they cook it so well, A very good tomato sauce and a very, very, very good quality of pasta.

Yasmine: Have you thought of opening up a restaurant here?

Francesca: Yes I thought and I started to look around and the prices are crazy.

Yasmine: Not even if you have a partner?

Francesca: Even with three different persons, everyone with a different competency but you have to open a factory to earn some money because you are three and I work day and night and then we had the family restaurant and I was working 14 hours per day and so when it’s yours but then you don’t care — but I would like to — actually this supper club I started made me very happy.

Yasmine: Tell me more about the Supper Club.

Francesca: Supper club for dinner and the dinner was at the Swiss Club and you get invited from Facebook so my friends, everybody I know has the right to invite their own friends and then by email or sms, contacts, all known people but friends of friends also, so it’s sort of a private club, nobody can enter without an invitation and then we know all the names. So my idea is to have the dinner but with something else sort of like entertainment, surprise or atmosphere, not only the dinner, it’s a night, it’s a concept, and the idea is to go to places where you wouldn’t spontaneously go, so people don’t go to eat dinner at the Swiss Club but then they are doing now a good job to relaunch the Swiss Club and the garden is amazing, and so I cooked with their team, and I was very happy and then we put up all the decorations and created the theme so it was season 1, episode 1 Spring.

Yasmine: Yesterday, the first time, the launching of Kairos Supper Club.

Francesca: Yes. Kairo’s Supper Club and I was happy because I really didn’t expect more than 100 people, it was beyond my expectations and it was very nice. So I would like to go to places that are not popular. I would like to go downtown, it’s a risk because I thought Swiss Club, Egyptians hate this neighborhood so it’s a risk. But then we had very nice tables coming also from Maadi, Saqqara, so I’d like to go to downtown and to places where people don’t usually go.

Yasmine: So you want to start moving your supper club around downtown then maybe Maadi and so on?

Francesca: People move and people wanted to move actually yesterday to talk to the people and then they love to have something different, they told me to do it on a monthly basis.

Yasmine: And after downtown you can discover Maadi for yourself you can go and see what’s what or Mohandessin, Dokki, Haram, Zamalek, anywhere.

Francesca: That’s the idea.

Yasmine: Do you have a special technique or cooking style?

Francesca: My technique basis is the French combined with Italian so there is definitely improvisation after you know the technique. My style is healthy, fresh, tasty, healthy because I like light food but not diabetic food, and possibly working with color, fresh herbs, and here there are edible flowers.

Yasmine: So tell me about your cooking classes?

Francesca: The cooking classes I do it mainly for professionals. I trained Chefs and cooks.

Yasmine: Not novices?

Francesca: I started with Egyptian novices yes but then I worked for this Italian project so it took a long time but private families then sent me their cooks or let’s say I go always in the kitchen of my client because they feel in their element — it’s always delicate, but I started with novice Egyptian girls and I gave cooking classes for Gourmet in Sheikh Zayed and then I organized it also by myself. Let’s say that demand is higher than what I can offer for the time I have but also yesterday there were a lot of people so I will try to do better.

Yasmine: So your cooking classes are for chefs and novices?

Francesca: Yes totally, beginners. No previous experience required.

Yasmine: What’s the schedule like? What time?

Francesca: Let’s say at least 2 hours and a half, but three hours if we have a tasting and sitting together but when I arrived in Cairo in this apartment I ordered a special table to have at least 12 people surrounding it .

Yasmine: So your timings of the classes are when?

Francesca: Weekends but now people are traveling in the weekend because of summer, so in that case it’s usually after work and sometimes after work people are tired and want to relax so I prepare things in advance plus I chop or cook something, and then I try to give the class it in a pleasant way, with music and a welcome drink and we start relaxing together then have a tasting together. So the idea is to bring people together and have this good ambience and team building. Also a company request was it wants to do this for their employees, and during the time you are preparing and cooking the food you start to trust and laugh with other people and there is the complicity that you did something together, then they come together and sit down and share something you’ve done together and I really believe it’s a good context for companies and team building.

Yasmine: So it’s either weekends or after work, and what cuisine do you teach?

Francesca: I saw people demanding a lot of Italian but then if for example it’s a group, I would go with what the group likes. Women for example they prefer fish and risotto, and men mostly meat and technique, but not just cooking. I remember there was a girl going to get married who said I don’t even know how to cook an egg so I taught her things like you have a piece of meat of 2 cm, 3cm 4cm how can you cook it? We tried it together and then I taught her how to organize a buffet for example, how to get through and not be in the kitchen and check the quantities and people always ask if I have a party how much beverage should I serve — all those things, techniques, secrets and so on.

Yasmine: What would you consider is your biggest achievement so far?

Francesca: The biggest achievement was to convince my father and his wife to open the restaurant; we had two different concepts in mind. My father was a cook and he wanted to leave Rome then he went back to his native place in Italy and he wanted a more inventive cuisine but then we had kilometer zero which is more or less an ecological thing. If you buy products but they came by plane it’s not ecological anymore because of the plane. Kilometer zero is also supporting the territory around you so your personal income will benefit the place.

Yasmine: Sustainable.

Francesca: Sustainable yes, and so the slow food philosophy so using for example all kinds of vegetables that are discovered or varieties of food that are disappearing that nobody buys because they are not beautiful but they are delicious when cooked in the right way and so the biggest achievement was to convince them to go that direction yes and then my father reinvented the traditional cuisine, of course we put something that comes from our history, our family, so we added some spices.

The other thing is this Supper Club I’m very happy and not being Egyptian, and I’ve been here for two and a half years, but I was really glad that the people coming trusted the process. So that’s really nice.

Yasmine: Can you share some of your aspirations, your hopes for the future?

Francesca: I’d like to focus more on the consultancy side and maybe to become a food hunter, maybe it will not be the vocation of my dreams, climbing mountains looking for food and then going with beautiful people in Peru, in Ecuador or wherever with them and sitting with them and eating their food and discovering these things and selling these things because the funny thing is these spices are sold to the most beautiful top restaurants in the world, so this is my biggest dream. But then something more down to earth I’d like to start good product, good producers, or help people to produce at the highest quality possible and then help them sell.

Yasmine: So you would like to be involved in the agricultural part of the food?

Francesca: The processing, agricultural is too far, so far it’s impossible. But for example Cairo has tomatoes all year round but there aren’t many Egyptian tomato sauces. There are a lot of people doing an amazing job but they are by themselves, they don’t sell enough or they don’t have good distribution networks and I’d like to encourage them, and create recipes because over here there is a lot going on and people want to work.

Yasmine: Is there anything that I haven’t asked you that you’d like to share?

Francesca: I’m very happy to have remembered my dream so I will work towards it so thank you for asking me these questions.

Yasmine: Not at all, my pleasure.

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