Four Seasons Hotel Cairo at the First Residence

You might expect Cairo, a city with a demonstrated taste for grandeur, to be chock full of first-class luxury hotels. For the most part, you’d be wrong. But there are exceptions, some of them rather striking — a case in point is the Four Seasons Cairo First Residence.

It’s notable perhaps first of all for applying the trademark Four Seasons understatement to a project that’s unabashedly grand. The First Residence is the sort of mixed-use development city planners dream of, a retail, dining and entertainment megaplex that’s meant to act as a linchpin to this upscale district, a mile to the north of the Pyramids. And atop it all is the Four Seasons, whose overriding tastefulness tempers what could otherwise come off as hubristically opulent.

This is what Dubai wishes it could have been. The rooms are massive and extremely well-appointed, without the sterility that often accompanies the high end of luxury. Bathrooms, clad in marble and granite, feature deep soaking tubs. Views of the Nile or of the Pyramids, if you’re lucky, are a reminder that Cairo is steeped in history. And the facilities are expectedly first-rate, from the well-equipped fitness center, the day spa and the open-air pool deck to the selection of restaurants, bars and lounges — and anything you can’t find within the Four Seasons is surely to be found somewhere within the First Residence.