A world apart
Luxor’s legendary Al Moudira Hotel recalls a bygone era of glamour.
By Nicola Chilton
There’s magic in Luxor. Even the name has mystique, that “x” in the middle marking the spot of hidden treasure. Riches have been concealed and revealed here for millennia—inside the tombs in the Valley of the Kings, across the painted walls of the temples of Hatshepsut and Medinat Habu, and still, most likely, buried beneath the sands, far from prying eyes.
I arrive in Luxor on a chilly December evening. I’m heading to the serene, green West Bank of the Nile, slightly inland from the great river at a site that was once nothing but desert. Removed from the tumult of tourists and cruise boats, Luxor’s quieter West Bank is home to the legendary Al Moudira Hotel.
I step into the vintage Mercedes limousine sent to pick me up. It’s the kind of car I imagine Umm Kulthum getting into with her black glasses and raven hair piled high. We drive on dark roads past glassy canals where palms and flickering streetlights reflect in motionless water. A muezzin calls the last adhan at a small mosque beside a tree where roosting egrets look like paper flowers. In the distance, the mortuary temple of Hatshepsut emits a golden glow beneath steep limestone cliffs.
Hero image: Rooms feature domed ceilings, hand-painted frescoes, and king-size beds made with Egyptian cotton from Malaika Cairo. Above: Hand-painted murals in the salon of Villa Zeina create an atmosphere of grandeur and eclectic sophistication. Hero image: Mark Anthony Fox courtesy of Al Moudira; Salon photo: Nicola Chilton.
Al Moudira feels as though it is from another time. Flanked by farmland, the hotel is entered through a carved wooden portico that leads to a palm-filled courtyard where desert sunlight filters through mashrabiya screens by day, and the clink of glasses and hum of chatter fill the air by night. The courtyard sets the mood for the rest of the hotel; with the patina of a bygone era, it is filled with antiques and treasures and surrounded by lush gardens. Tucked away in a glass cabinet are early 20th-century editions of Baedeker’s Egypt, the quintessential guide for travellers.
It feels as if it has been here for centuries, but Al Moudira is only 24 years old, the creation of Italian-Lebanese designer Zeina Aboukheir. Received wisdom has it that she arrived in Luxor on a felucca and fell in love with the spot where she would later build her hotel. “Not true,” she tells me with a breezy wave as we sip lemon juice with chamomile syrup surrounded by palms. The hotel really begins with a love story, she says, love for a man and for a small, five-room hotel in Sidi Bou Saïd in Tunisia. “It was a long time ago and I forget the name of the hotel now, but I was young and beautiful and in love, and I found it very charming and very romantic,” she says. “I decided that one day I would make a place just like it, where people could feel as happy as I was when I was there.”
Aboukheir was living in Cairo with her journalist husband when she finally decided to realise her dream. She chose Luxor, for the magic and the almost-perfect winter weather, sketched little houses and cupolas outlining her plan, and showed it to the authorities. It took three years to get the permits to start building.
“They probably thought, let’s give her this piece of desert that nobody is interested in, and she’ll go and never come back,” she tells me. But she did come back, and she persevered, turning this patch of desert into the lush, green oasis that she had envisaged. “Everybody here was eating dates, so I took the pits and threw them all over the garden. This country is so magical, all of these palm trees today are from then.”
Aboukheir worked with Egyptian architect Olivier Sednaoui to bring her vision to life. Guestrooms are individually decorated, with scenes of dunes and palms, arabesques and flowers, hand-painted in natural pigments by a team of artisans led by Lebanese painter Mario Dahabi. Light enters through cupolas with stained-glass skylights, and falls onto furniture salvaged from great houses, silk ikat cushions, richly embroidered tapestries, and Egyptian-cotton bed linens from Cairo brand Malaika. Some suites have fountains, with sumptuous cushions that recreate the mood of old Orientalist paintings.
Top: The Colossi of Memnon, statues of Amenhotep III, stand at the entrance to the king’s funerary temple. Above: An arched arcade around the hotel’s main courtyard. Photos: Nicola Chilton.
The five-bedroom Villa Zeina, once Aboukheir’s own home, connects indoor and outdoor spaces, including an elegant sitting room that feels like an Ottoman salon, a book-lined office beneath a cupola painted midnight blue and ruby, and an outdoor swimming pool lined with bottle-green tiles.
I wander the grounds, through courtyards where fountains babble beneath billowing bougainvillea, under the silvery-green palm trees that flank the long swimming pool, and past conical white dovecotes that look ancient but are relatively new additions.
Al Moudira is an oasis in the truest sense, filled with plants both ornamental and functional. A working 12-hectare farm supplies the hotel’s restaurants, including the new Farm Kitchen, led by Andalusia-born chef Gioconda Scott. Around 80% of ingredients are sourced on the farm, with the rest coming from local suppliers. The nature-to-table, seasonal cuisine at Farm Kitchen is made in an open-air kitchen set amid the farm.
I dine on sliced pears with homemade ricotta, rucola and hazelnuts, a salad of tomato and mozzarella, and crispy eggplant cooked a la Milanesa with chermoula and parsley. The punchy, fresh flavours, served on plates from the onsite pottery studio, feel as good for the soul as the warm winter sun. Grilled chicken, pigeon, and lamb chops are also on the menu. I finish with creamy rice pudding, lightly caramelised on top and infused with fragrant lemongrass.
Al Moudira is surrounded by farmland. Figs are local produce. Photos: Nicola Chilton
Food is a big part of Al Moudira. Most guests are heading out for long days of tomb-trekking, filling their minds with complex names, dates, and dynasties. A good breakfast is essential. Mornings start early with juices squeezed from freshly harvested fruits, local dairy produce, hot baladi bread, and Egyptian breakfast staples like crispy ta’ameya falafel, eggs scrambled with basturma, and bowls of piping-hot foul medames spiced with cumin.
I too am heading out, to see some of the sites that are conveniently close to the hotel. Al Moudira entrusts me to the care of guide Ahmed Hammam Ali. He suggests we head to the quieter Valley of the Nobles, where tombs belonging to the Pharaohs’ elite administrators are painted with vividly coloured scenes of daily life. I see figures making bread, hunting ducks, paying taxes, driving cattle, and mourning death, all rendered in exquisite detail. We have the complex mostly to ourselves.
In the evening, I’m driven past fields of tomatoes drying in the sun, beneath the watchful gaze of the Colossi of Memnon, and arrive at a pier. I gingerly walk the plank to board Captain Saber’s boat. The wind is in our favour and we drift gently upstream, following a flotilla of feluccas here for the same magical moment when the sun sets beyond the western deserts. White egrets flap their wings languidly as they head to roost over waters turned golden. Saber turns the boat around, letting the current carry us home. We drive back to Al Moudira beneath a sky blushing pink as if embarrassed by its beauty.
After a busy day of sightseeing, the swimming pool (this one at Villa Zeina) and lush gardens offer welcome sanctuary. Al Moudira is an oasis in the truest sense. Photo: Nicola Chilton.
