By half past five the sandstone at Karnak goes the colour of apricot skin, and then the light drops out of it altogether and you walk back to the gate dusty, salt-dried and hungrier than you expected to be. Luxor answers that hunger well: charcoal smoke drifting off the Corniche, clay pots of pigeon and okra carried out still spitting, rooftops where you eat with the floodlit columns of Luxor Temple directly below your table. These are the places I've actually sat down and eaten in, what they run to per head, and which one to pick depending on how wrecked the day has left you.
A refuel between the temples
Nobody plans the middle of a temple day properly. You do Karnak at opening, you're back on the Corniche by eleven, and by one o'clock you have neither the energy for a proper meal nor the sense to skip one.
Aboudi Coffee Break (east bank, looking straight onto Luxor Temple) is the answer, and I use it more than any grand dinner on this list. Sandwiches, simple grills, cold drinks, and an upstairs terrace with enough shade to make sitting outside at midday survivable. The view over the temple wall is the reason to climb the stairs rather than take a ground-floor table. Around EGP 100-250 a head, which makes it the cheapest thing here by a distance.
Be realistic about the size of it: the terrace is small. Two of you, four of you, fine. A tour group of fourteen will not fit and shouldn't try. Treat it as a refuel, not a destination. You eat, you drink something cold, you go back out into the heat.
Straight off Karnak, without a taxi
El Hussein Seafood Restaurant (by Karnak, roughly two hundred metres from the temple gate) is the most useful address in Luxor if you're travelling as a group. It runs on fixed set menus served family-style down the middle of the table. The food arrives, it keeps arriving, and nobody has to negotiate a bill split at the end. Around EGP 200-350 a head, which for the volume that lands in front of you is generous.
One warning that costs people half an hour every week: there are two similarly named El Hussein branches on the same road, and taxi drivers mix them up constantly. Say Karnak, confirm the location before you pay the driver, and if you've booked, ring the restaurant and hand the phone over. It's an unglamorous piece of admin that saves a bad-tempered walk in the sun.
Rooftops worth timing to the sunset
The city is low, the river is wide, and in the last forty minutes before sunset the light on the west cliffs will stay with you longer than most of what you ate.
Al-Sahaby Lane Restaurant (east bank, an easy walk from Luxor Temple) has been family-run since the 1930s, and the roof is the whole point. Egyptian cooking, unfussy, roughly EGP 200-400 a head. The catch: the sunset slot is the one everyone wants, and the roof is used to tour groups, so reserve several days ahead and be specific about the time. Turn up at eight with no booking and you'll be eating indoors, wondering what the fuss was.
Oriental House Luxor (east bank) is the one I send people to when Sofra is full, and increasingly the one I'd send them to first. Four floors, which means real capacity, and one of the strongest kitchens in the city, Egyptian cooking done with more care than the price suggests, around EGP 200-400 a head. Ask for the rooftop when you book, because the top level is the reason to climb past three perfectly ordinary dining rooms. It is less discovered than the famous names, which currently works in your favour.
Thebes Bar & Grill (east bank, rooftop) is the outlier: farm-to-table, a set menu plus daily specials, and flame-grilled burgers that are genuinely good rather than an apology for a burger. It also has the strongest vegan and vegetarian cooking I've found in Luxor, which matters if someone in your party has spent three days living on bread and tahini. It serves local beer and wine. Roughly EGP 250-500 a head. Reservations and delivery are both taken by phone, so call rather than hunting for a booking form.
A proper Egyptian sit-down
Sofra Restaurant & Café (east bank, back from the river) is the default answer for a serious Egyptian dinner and deserves the reputation. Mezze that keeps expanding across the table, tagines that come out of the clay still bubbling, stuffed pigeon for anyone who wants the dish Luxor is actually known for. Around EGP 250-500 a head, spread over two floors plus a private room.
Two hard practicalities. It is cash only, in Egyptian pounds (no card, no euros, no dollars at the till), so draw money before you go. And evening tables need booking several days ahead, not the same afternoon. Both of those catch people out, and both are entirely avoidable.
Oasis Palace (east bank, near the museum) is where the room does the heavy lifting. It's a preserved colonial house, several separate dining spaces, and the pace is slower than anywhere else on this list, which is the right choice when you want dinner to take two hours rather than one. Around EGP 250-450 a head. Medium groups fit comfortably, but call ahead for anything over about eight so they can put you in the right room. If you're cross-checking older listings, you'll find it under its former name, Oasis Café.
Aisha Restaurant Luxor (east bank) is the calmer, more modern option, and the one I choose when the heat has flattened my appetite. Mediterranean plates sit alongside the tagines, so you can eat lightly without eating badly, and the room is intimate rather than cavernous. Around EGP 250-500 a head. Good for couples and small to mid-size groups; a party of fifteen would swamp it.
Charcoal, and the river right there
Restaurant El-Kababgy Luxor (on the Corniche) is the grill house locals point you towards, and the food justifies the pointing: kofta, lamb and chicken over charcoal, cooked hard and fast, with the Nile immediately beyond the terrace rail. Complimentary mezze arrives unasked and in quantity, so order fewer starters than instinct tells you to. You will not need them. Around EGP 200-400 a head.
The open terrace absorbs big parties without strain, and outside peak season walk-ins are usually fine, which makes it the rescue option on an evening when nothing was planned. In high season, book.
When nobody can face another tagine
It happens on about day four. The cooking hasn't got worse; you've simply eaten the same excellent things five times running.
Silk Road (east bank, hotel dining with river views) is the strongest non-Egyptian meal in the city: Thai, Chinese, Indian and Korean cooked properly rather than blended into a vague pan-Asian menu. It's licensed, and being a hotel restaurant, groups are straightforward with a reservation. It's also the top of the mainstream price range at roughly EGP 700-1,400 a head, so treat it as a decision rather than a casual drop-in.
Steigenberger Nile Palace — Thai Restaurant (on the Corniche) is a genuine Thai kitchen with a Thai chef, and around EGP 600-1,100 a head it sits just below Silk Road. The mistake everybody makes is turning up at lunchtime: it opens for dinner service only. Book the evening, and don't build a midday plan around it.
Pizza Roma-it (east bank) is the release valve on a long trip. Big pizzas, pasta, no ceremony, roughly EGP 150-300 a head, and it will keep a tired eight-year-old or a fussy adult perfectly happy. It is not a destination meal and I won't pretend otherwise, but on the right evening it's exactly what a family needs.
Dinner on the West Bank
If your day has been spent among the tombs, crossing back for dinner is often a waste of the light. Eat where you already are.
Nile Valley Hotel & Restaurant (West Bank, at the ferry crossing) is the natural first or last stop of a West Bank day: you step off the boat and you're more or less at the door. Egyptian and international plates on a roof terrace, beer served, around EGP 180-350 a head. It's a simple operation, so ring ahead if there are more than a handful of you.
Marsam Hotel Restaurant (West Bank) is my standing recommendation for lunch out there. Tables sit in a garden courtyard, much of the produce comes from that same garden, and the menu changes with what's ready, which is why you should give them notice if you're bringing numbers rather than assuming fifteen covers can materialise at one o'clock. Roughly EGP 200-350 a head.
Al Moudira (West Bank) is the most beautiful room in the Luxor area and the top of the price range at roughly EGP 900-1,800 a head. Ingredients come off its own farm, and there are several distinct spaces: the farm restaurant, the Khan Al Moudira café, and private dining that can be booked for a group. It's a proper occasion dinner and worth the drive, but treat the transport as part of the plan and arrange the car both ways before you sit down, because a taxi will not simply be waiting outside when you finish.
Which tables take a crowd
If you're eight or more, the reliable ones are the seafood set menus by Karnak, the four floors at Oriental House, the open Corniche terrace at the grill house, the rooftop at Al-Sahaby Lane, and the two hotel dining rooms. All of them are used to numbers, and none will improvise it for you without a call. Sofra manages groups across two floors and a private room, but only with several days' notice.
If you're two, go the other way. Aisha, Oasis Palace and the roof at Thebes are the tables where a quiet dinner stays quiet. And whatever the size of the party, the cafés near the temples are refuelling stops, not evening plans.
What to know before you sit down
Bring Egyptian pounds, and more of them than you think. Sofra is cash only and won't take anything else; several of the smaller places prefer cash even where a card machine exists. Draw money on the east bank before crossing the river, not after.
Taxis are the default, and you agree the fare before you get in, not after. The public ferry to the West Bank is cheap and frequent, which makes the ferry-side roof terrace an easy plan. For anywhere further out on the West Bank, book a car with a return time rather than trusting to luck at the end of the evening.
Dinner runs late here. Restaurants fill from around eight, and the sunset rooftop slots are the first thing to disappear, so reserve those days out. One kitchen serves dinner only. Lunch on a West Bank day is easier and more pleasant than trekking back across the river in the heat.
A refuel plus a good Egyptian dinner comes in around EGP 300-750 a head all in. Add the licensed hotel restaurants and you're at EGP 600-1,400; the West Bank occasion dinner sits above that again. Staying central shortens every one of these journeys, so start with a Luxor hotel search on the east bank near the Corniche, and see the rest of the Luxor guide for how to sequence the temple days these meals are built around.
Alcohol is served at the hotel restaurants, at the farm-to-table rooftop and at the ferry-side terrace. Most of the souk-side Egyptian places are dry. Ask when you book rather than at the table.
