While Skokie may not be considered a dining destination, it does have two culinary graces–kosher restaurants and a lineup of excellent Mediterranean places. Avraham Zaguri’s five-month-old Marrakesh combines the two, serving kosher Moroccan food. The style is popular in Israel, where there’s a sizable Moroccan population. “I didn’t open it just to be a kosher restaurant,” says the 37-year-old observant Jew. “But I have to taste the food to keep up the quality and make sure it’s right. It doesn’t take a lot to keep it kosher, either; the cuisine doesn’t have much dairy in it anyhow.”
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Zaguri grew up in central Israel. In 1988, after serving three years in the army, he came to the U.S. “Like everyone, I came to visit,” he says. “But I met my wife and never left.” He started General Remodeling, a carpentry and handyman business, with the ambition of opening a restaurant “when the opportunity was right.” His job required him to drive around the suburbs a lot, and last December he spotted the vacant space in a strip mall on Dempster west of McCormick. “My finances were in order, and the location, between I-94 and McCormick Boulevard, seemed good to me,” he says. “But the key was the parking.”
“There really aren’t any restaurants like this in Israel,” Zaguri says. “We all cook at home. I never even went to a restaurant until I was an adult, and all I can remember is the falafel, and later pizza came. There isn’t really a [national] cuisine there, since it’s made up of all different types of people. It’s mostly just Middle Eastern food.”
