Where to Eat in El Gouna, Egypt – Our Personal Favorites
- Suzana Lelic
- Feb 4
- 5 min read
Updated: Feb 25
El Gouna is a modern luxury resort town in Egypt, located on the stunning Red Sea coastline, near Hurghada. Built by Orascom Group, the same company behind Lustica Bay in Montenegro and Andermatt in Switzerland, El Gouna was their first-ever project and they started it in the late 80s. Imagine, there was nothing there before. Only desert and the sea.
Spread across multiple lagoons, sandy beaches, and coral-rich waters, El Gouna is often considered one of the best places to visit in the Red Sea as it offers so much. In El Gouna you will find trendy hotels such as The Chedi, restaurants, beach clubs, and some of the best dive sites in Egypt.
After visiting El Gouna we also spend some time in other areas of Egypt and this definitely feels like the most modern and luxury in terms of variety of places, restaurants and outdoor clubs.
During our stay in El Gouna, we stayed at then newly opened The Chedi. (You can read more about the hotel here)
We would always have breakfast at the hotel before the diving and then lunches and dinners would try to go out and explore El Gouna. We would very often just take a tuctuc instead of taxi because it's just sooooo much fun :)
These are our favorite restaurants and places in El Gouna :
Makani is a kitesurfing beach and school as well as the beach club with super vibey restaurant. This is a perfect place to spend a day on the beach and grab a heatlhy lunch. They also have all sorts of cold pressed juices, coffees, smoothies and very pleasant atmosphere. They are also open for dinner and often organize sunset sessions with a DJ so it's a must visit when in El Gouna.
This is the perfect place to learn how to kite-surf and enjoy the wind in Egypt.
Ok, this was by far our favorite place and we went there twice for dinner and once for lunch. For all Mexican food lovers, this is an absolute heaven. Every single dish was incredible and trust when we say this because, we tried them all. One night we went there with a big group of people and managed to order everything on the menu.
My personal favorite were tacos. Heaven! Honestly my mouth is watering right now as I recall the taste, perfect amount of crispy and spicy.
And they make pretty good margaritas!
The vibe is fun, casual and the perfect amount of chaotic. Again the advice is to sit inside as the dust was coming from the streets.
The service - excellent.
This is probably the first place I would go back to, if I was to visit El Gouna again.
This place was recommended by two of our Egyptian friends. And when locals recommend you something, you listen. It's located in El Gouna Bay where you can find private yachts docked. It's definitely one of the most talked about places in El Gouna.
I believe this is the first Pier 88 restaurant ever to open. They now have locations around the world.
The restaurant looks like a little boat, and first we sat inside but then we were a bit too hot and ask for the table outside. The menu looked interesting, a bit of everything. A fusion of international cuisine, with accent on Italian, as they have quite a lot of pasta dishes.
We shared a Chateaubriand with some salads, and the meat quality was very good.
If you are looking for one of the best dinning experiences in El Gouna, look no further, this is it.
Luna
We went to Luna for our last dinner in El Gouna. It is located on the same street as Chicha, in the area called El Gouna Downtown.
The place is super cute, a mix of Mediterranean and international cuisine, so you will find something for everybody’s taste.
The cocktails were also very good. Remember that the place is small, so it is better to get a booking in advance. On the night we were there, there was a live performance, and the singer sang very beautifully.
The only not so small problem was the dust from the road. I mean if you don't mind extra seasoning and a taste of Egyptian roads you will love the place.
Don’t get me wrong, the food was fantastic, the ambiance was great, but the amount of dust blowing in from the road? Unreal. At one point, I looked down at my plate and wasn’t sure if my dish came with a spice mix or just a complimentary layer of desert dust.
After our first visit to Villa Coconut, Giorgio and I walked away slightly confused. It was recommended to us by a dear friend who visits El Gouna every year. I think this was actually our first dinner in Egypt.
The food was incredible, the setting was lovely, but the “no kissing” rule caught us completely off guard. At some point during the dinner there was no one in the restaurant. (normally this is a buzzy place, more about that below). We seized the opportunity to exchange a kiss and we are not talking about second base or anything. Just a kiss. Then we saw one of the waiters or a manager approaching the table. He whispered to G that there is no kissing rule in the restaurant. We laughed it off, made a mental note to keep things PG next time, and left wondering if this place was just a little more on the conservative side.
The truth is, when you are in a foreign country it is respectful to obey the rules, and follow their way as we are only guests in their house. However, El Gouna really resembles Europe in some ways and it is easy to forget that you are in a muslim country where they find kissing in public a bit scandalous.
I was slightly embarrassed I must say..
But then come our second visit to Villa Coconut. We had just finished dinner at Chicha with a group of 6 when someone mentioned that there is a party at Villa Coconut and that we should go there. And so we went. We took a table and ordered the best tequila they had which was not great. This was a place where we had a lot of problems ordering our drinks, then getting wrong or just bad drinks. The atmosphere was fun. They played mostly Egyptian pop or at least I believe that was it :) It became really buzzy and to our surprised not as conservative as they portrayed themselves the first night. The energy was completely different than our first night. Loud music, lots of people and great atmosphere.
There is also a very cute shop where you can find some nice clothes, jewellery and bags.
The place has a lot of potential and the food was very good, so I do consider it one of the best places to eat at El Gouna, even with the strict no-PDA-policy.
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