Walking the streets of downtown Alexandria last week, Fatemah Farag observes the happy convergence of good business and a healthy regard for history It was a gloomy, cold winter night some years ago in Alexandria when, weighed down by an indefinable sense of nostalgia for a younger carefree world we had not seen, we were lured into the dark wood-panelled interior of Santa Lucia; though bygone, the ancient coastal city's downtown streets still hinted at that magic. "Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away," the middle-aged band singer crooned while the woman in the silver shoes danced behind him. The lyrics were apt. Once a beacon of cosmopolitan nightlife -- all through the first half of the last century, in fact -- Santa Lucia, much like the singer with long wisps of hair plastered from one side of his head to the other to camouflage the creeping baldness, like all of downtown Alexandria, had been way past its heyday. "It was like a belle woman gone to seed." So Rudi Georgiades, vice-president of Operations for Nascotours, described Santa Lucia, leading me around the newly renovated restaurant. Georgiades is very proud of the renovation; just back from East Asia, he points out the knickknacks now adorning walls and enclaves, explaining how the wood panelling was restored and a loft built into the high ceiling as he moved between tables dressed in crisp white cloth with full sets of Libby glassware brought from the US, Rosenthal Studio Line tableware -- and sprays of flowers. We took in these details on the eve of Santa Lucia's soft re-opening last week. But there are details to be registered still, according to Georgiades: "A Japanese porcelain bowl goes here once the drawer is fixed; and a big potted plant will go against that wall; a grand piano will fit in there." The impresario lists them before whisking us off to the second half of the property: a bar in the process of being built. Santa Lucia was first opened in 1932 by the late Panayoti Soulos, a Greek resident of Alexandria whose name remains associated with such downtown landmarks as the Metropole Hotel and Asteria. When Soulos passed away a few years ago, his Egyptian partner took over -- until he sold out, a little over three years ago, to the husband of Soulos's granddaughter, John Siokas, now CEO and managing director of Nasco Tours. "The restaurant has always meant a lot to my family," Siokas explains while overseeing renovations in the third-floor restaurant at the Greek Club -- out by the Qayt Bey Citadel. "Soulos was the president of the Greek Community [in Alexandria]; and we wanted to recapture this particular heritage but by the standard of a modern clientele." A relatively recent graduate of the Faculty of Chemical Engineering at Alexandria University, Siokas is obviously comfortable with his identity as an Alexandrian Greek: "This is our world, let us not forget Alexander the Great -- if not for that I wouldn't be investing so much money here." Of which, in Santa Lucia alone, a staggering estimated LE5 million was invested. Indeed, for Georgiades, as he told us at the restaurant, "money has been no object. We've been spending left and right on every detail -- so as to get it just right". Siokas is busy showing me picture after picture of plates of food -- culinary delights that he claims taste better than they look, and which will be served to Santa Lucia's customers very soon. Hopefully this will take place after 26 July, if they manage to secure that date for their formal opening. "I sent Yanni [Siokas] with a list of things to buy when he was last abroad. The cinnamon had to come from Cyprus, because locally available spice has a bitter taste. The oregano and feta cheese are imported, too -- not to mention the curry powder, which comes from Bombay." The list goes on. Walking up Safia Zaghlul Street, past shops selling cheap watches with sound systems blaring out Quranic verses into the morning air, street vendors selling scarves, a decrepit if charming Elite where Edith Piaf is said to have eaten, Asteria and Pastroudus, which has finally been shut down in shambles, one can only question the economic viability of all the money being spent bringing Santa Lucia back from the realm of recent history. Santa Lucia's new general manager Ibrahim Abdel Ghani, explained that part of the clientele will hail from Nasco Tours -- which accounts for around 350,000 in-bound visitors a year. "We once received a very serious complaint from a company -- some of their clients travelling through us had got food poisoning after eating at a five-star establishment," Abdel Ghani recounted, pointing out that "it is not just us who need a reliable restaurant, but dignitaries and others need a venue they know they can take visitors to without being disgraced." Further, Siokas expects better business will come to Alexandria over the next ten years. "This is no short-term investment. The Alexandria Port has been renovated, and there is the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, the Citadel, the renovated Opera at the Sayed Darwish Theatre -- and now Santa Lucia," he detailed. "We are not targeting young people who head out to the coffee shops of Semouha, rather the gentleman who wants to take his wife out to dinner and those who come in search of downtown Alexandria specifically; at present there is no establishment that caters to these needs." Though aware of the historical significance of Santa Lucia, Siokas does not have a nostalgic perspective: "I am a young man telling you this as a young man. It is good business." But it is nostalgia as well. "Before coming to Alexandria three and a half years ago I had read the Alexandria Quartet by Laurance Durrell. Then, when I walked around town and saw Pastroudis and Delice -- and all the other places I had read about. I was in tears to see what they had come to," Georgiades recounts. Enter -- appropriately, at this point -- Mr Alecos, who worked at Santa Lucia for almost 40 years and was head waiter for much of that time: "We were patronised by King Farouk and Presidents Nasser and Sadat. Kissinger dined here, and so did famous singing stars like Eznavour, Dalida, Abdel-Halim Hafez. This is not to mention Nahhas Pasha, Hassanein Heikal and Naguib Mahfouz, who would go to Asteria for coffee after a meal. Writer Anis Mansour would come especially for our langoustine, while Ihsan Abdel Qodous came for the Osso Bucco; and we had a special group who came for 20 days in September for the quail season," he remembers, his eyes straining through the thick lenses of his dark eyeglasses. Siokas agrees that Santa Lucia's kitchen was once an international award winner and that it is the restaurant with the longest continuous history in Alexandria. And the men involved in the Santa Lucia project are all enthusiastic and full of energy; they rave about pricing, the importance of detail, standards of excellence and heritage. Whether all of this will bring back a glimmer of the Alexandria of Durrell remains to be seen. Either way, it seems bound to make for an exciting dinning experience.
