Half the construction costs were paid by Ezra Mosseri, an affluent Egyptian Jewish banker and director of the National Bank of Egypt, and another 46% by the Goldschmidt family and other wealthy Cairo Jews.

Among the hotel's famous official guests: British monarch Charles III; King Hussein of Jordan; U.S. Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden; British Prime Ministers Winston Churchill, Harold Wilson, Margaret Thatcher, John Major, and Tony Blair; Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi; U.S. politicians Henry Kissinger[6] and Hillary Clinton;[7] as well as many stars including Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Dreyfuss, Richard Gere and Madonna.

[9] The public rooms were decorated by Gustave-Adolphe Hufschmid in motifs taken from Assyrian, Hittite, Phoenician and Muslim buildings in an effort to evoke a "Biblical" style.

In 1958, after ownership of the hotel changed hands, the kitchen began to comply with kashrut regulations, but continued to serve a kosher version of French influenced haute cuisine.

Dishes served by the hotel's restaurant during that era included entrecote steak with béarnaise sauce, pommes mignonettes dorées and salmon poached in court-bouillon.

By the 1960s, demographics had changed with senior staff positions held mostly by Jews of German or Czech origin, and the restaurant had also started serving traditional dishes from Ashkenazi cuisine for shabbos dinners, such as gehakte leber and gefilte fish.