Maqha Groppi is located in Downtown Cairo and was created by Giacomo Groppi (1863-1958), a Ticino pastry cook who arrived in Egypt in the 1880s. Inaugurated in 1925, the pastry shop is widely considered to be one of the most famous tearooms of the city with its Venetian multicoloured mosaics executed by Antonio Castaman.
As a total art work, the pastry shop features an eclectic style with Art Deco decors by Léon Cailler. The building was designed by the Italian architect Guiseppe Mazza who was a pupil of Antonio Lasciac and active in Cairo and Alexandria between the 1920s and 1930s. Originally, the complex comprised a pastry shop, a tearoom, a restaurant “the Rotunda” with a glass ceiling executed by the artist Georges Jeannin (1841-1925), and a garden comprising the first open-air cinema of the town. The restaurant and the garden were destroyed by a fire in 1952 and were never rebuilt.
Sources:
"Raafat Samir,Groppi Of Cairo, Cairo Times, June 15, 1996," accessed June 16, 2016, http://www.egy.com/landmarks/96-06-15.php
