(Jewish Group) In Paris, Jewish childhood friends open chic restaurant serving couscous

[Behind the Aegis]

In Paris, Jewish childhood friends open chic restaurant serving their Tunisian grandparents’ couscous


Mabrouk serves "Sephardic dishes with a modern French twist.” (Cnaan Liphshiz)

As children in Paris, Alexandre David and Alexis Memmi looked forward to summer every year when they would relocate to their grandmothers’ homes in Tunisia.

Summers there meant frolicking on the beach under the hot sun, playing on the streets of the Jewish quarter of the capital Tunis, where their families lived — and plenty of glorious Sephardic dishes that those grandmothers made with recipes handed down and perfected over generations.

There, the childhood friends made a vow.

“We said that as soon as we grow up we’d open a restaurant together and serve those dishes in the center of Paris,” David, 35, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

It took a little longer than they expected, but that childhood dream is finally a reality at Mabrouk, a kosher-style restaurant they opened in 2019 that aims to make Sephardic Tunisian dishes accessible to the modern Parisian diner.

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