Nancy Brothers

Review of Sofitel Old Cataract, Aswan

For the food, not the hotel. Short version: Servi...

For the food, not the hotel. Short version: Service was mediocre, food was mediocre, hotel is gorgeous. Not worth $100 for two people. Frankly, the whole thing came off like they're coasting on their reputation. My advice is, if you want to see the place, come for a drink.

The Terrace said they only had inside seats, which, ok, that's what I get for making last minute reservations. Showed up, they couldn't find our reservation, but we paid the $30 per person deposit to get onto the grounds and headed in. The grounds were gorgeous, we were excited to explore after the meal.

Went in the front door, it wasn't clear where the restaurant was. Asked, headed towards the back. Asked at what looked like a hostess desk. Was told we could seat ourselves outside. Which was a little confusing, but great! there are outside seats after all! We went outside and sat. The waiter came to take our drink order, and asked our room number. When we said we weren't guests, just visiting for dinner, he said we'd have to sit on the next terrace over. Keep in mind, there are zero people seated on the nicer of the two terraces. I could see keeping a few tables for guests who might drop in without a reservation, but there was no one there. We move. It's a little chiller out from under the roof. It takes 20 min and two requests to get one of the portable heaters moved next to our table.

They bring us bread. 10 min later, after we've gotten crumbs all over the table, they bring us bread plates. Oh, and the butter is in little plastic individual serving packets. We order the Egyptian wine flights, and the server tries to talk us out of it, warning that the servings are very small. I was expecting to get three shot glasses of wine from his description. The flights come, and it's perfectly normal flights- three wine glasses each about a third full. Note: the wine wasn't amazing, but that was fine- I know Egypt doesn't produce alot of wine, and I was curious what it would be like. Curiosity satisfied!

The food comes. The best part of the meal, hands down, was the parmesan crusted calamari. It wasn't rings, it was a couple of slices of lightly breaded calamari. They were delicious. However, the menu described it as coming with marinara. The red sauce artfully swirled on the plate was a pretty potent hot sauce. Warn people!



After the meal we had a nice wander around the gorgeous grounds. The interior of the hotel is cool. Imagine our surprise when we found a terrace of tables with story book views of the Nile...with no one seated there. So not only couldn't we sit on the guest terrace, there was another one they weren't using. Instead, we ate with a view of the pool. The Nile would have been visible beyond the pool, except the pool is so lit up at night you can't see past it. Saves the servers walking the food farther I guess.

Remember how I said at the beginning that I'd been told we could only get a reservation to sit inside at the Terrace? But then when we got there they couldn't find our reservation? And then we were seated outside? As we were dining, I heard the staff tell at least two other sets of guests that The Terrace doesn't take reservations.