Jose Andres is one of the world's greatest chefs and also one of the world's greatest humanitarians. Jose Andre's owns and operates thirty restaurants around the country and started the World Central Kitchen, which helps feed people in times of crisis. On this episode, appear to Pear I sit down with Jose in my kitchen to discuss his transition from chef to humanitarian, how his organization is feeding people around the world, and policies he hopes the Biden administration will adopt to
end the hunger crisis in America. Jose, thank you very much for coming to my house in Bethesda and to my kitchen. Thank you for having me. It's an or to be here, really, So let's talk about your background and what you're doing, which is quite extraordinary. But to give people a sense of it, you are Spanish by birth, and you came to the United States originally with the Spanish Navy, Is that right? Yeah? First time? Well in his Spain, the military, he's mandatory. Back in today's was
a dream of mine to beyond the navy. Uh. They put me to cook for the Admiral of Spain. Why because I already was young cook with talent. I already was champion of Spain of young cooks. Really, you've already had a background. Yeah, I began working in kitchens when I was fourteen, very much fourteen fifteen. So in the military, all of the southern admiral. But I'm like, sir, I don't want to cook for you, with all the respect, But what are you saying, this is the best position
in the navy. No, I want to go on a boat. This boat I came to America and I traveled around the wall was a tall ship, the Juce. He was ten velcano, the training ship for the misshipment Foremast. It changed my life because on that boat, six months on the ocean, I learned the meaning of teamwork. I arrived to Pensacola, Florida, and then I arrived to New York. Can't you believe that thirty years ago with that ship, I dock on the West Side in Manhattan on fairlieth Street.
Thirty years later, I opened my biggest restaurant, Mercado, Little Spain, on thirty Street, hundred fifty meters away from the same place I arrived as a young sailor. American dreams. The American dream is real. So after you finish your tour of duty in the Spanish Navy, you went back to Spain. And when did you come to the United States as a non navy person. Yeah. I arrived like around. I came back like the beginning of to New York to be a young cook in a in a Catalan restaurant
in New York in Manhattan. It was a lot of investment that was coming from Spain into the United States. Was the Olympic Games of Barcelon and two. It was a lot of kind of cultural and business collaboration. I was one of those guys that came to America to become almost like you know, a culinary ambassador to a degree. I came to America, I never looked back. So you set up your own restaurant eventually, and your first restaurant was at a Spanish restaurant. Yeah. I then I was
in New York. I left New York, I traveled around. I went Puero Rico, I went to California, was in Lahoia. Um. I really got to know America, different parts of America. But then I got to school two businessmen that both had two restaurants. Robert to Albare's and Rob Wilder, and they say, we're opening a Spanish restaurant in Washington, and we would like for you to be our chef. I came, I joined another great chef who was a partner, and they excepted the chef and cushion. I was twenty three
was January of nine. Washington has been my home. Science then now you have thirty restaurants more or less in Las Vegas and other parts of the Los Angeles, Miami. But they're not all the same in the words. You have restaurants that to Spanish food, different types of food. Is that right? Yeah? In a way, what I do is I don't open businesses. I always say I tell his stories. I'm a cook. I expressed myself through my cooking, my plates, and what you see is a collection of
his stories. I share with people, the stories I learned and the stories that other people tell me, one place at the time. Then they become restaurants. Now, the most famous restaurant you ever wanted to open was in the Trump Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue, and you had worked out in arrangement. I guess with Donald Trump before he was elected president, and then after he made his opening speech when he said he was going to run for president, you decided to back out, He sued you. What was
that all about? And how that get resolved? Well, this was the restaurant where it became the building that used to be the old Posts post house office, the old post office that became the Trump Hotel. Uh. I had a dream of opening a restaurant on that building. But then when Mr Trump began opening, he's making opinions about immigrants. I thought that the way he was doing it was not aligned with my values. I understand everybody can have
their opinion, but their opinion should be respectful. He began showing kind of a love disrespect in the way he was talking about my fellow citizens in this case, immigrants, undocumented or not, just good people. At the end, I guess between the lawyers they arrived to a friendly resolution which I cannot talk much more about it. But he opened his hotel and I got what I wanted. That was not opening my restaurant on that location. Okay, you have thirty restaurants, more or less not the one of
the Trump Hotel. You're pretty successful, you're well known. You're also teaching at Harvard in food and other things. Pretty nice life. You're gonna build an even bigger business empire, and then all of a sudden, there's an earth quake in Haiti. So why did you decide to kind of walk a little bit away from your restaurant business to go feed the people in Haiti. You're not Haitian, nobody asked you to do this. What propelled you all of a sudden say I'm going to feed the people in Haiti.
They don't have any food. I almost have to go back twenty years ago when I arrived the sea. First, I was able to go to an organization called this c Central Kitchen, the best fighting hunger organization. I know. We don't only take care of people out of the streets and ex combats, UH put them in a place of of a possible success. We trend them to be cooked. In the process, we get food that is about to be thrown away. We put everything together. We gave opportunity
to people. We feed people at the same time. Brilliant idea. I saw the power of food to change the lives of people, the life of our community. When Haiti happened, I was very close to Haiti. I was in the Cayman Islands, and it's almost like a connection. I'm enjoying a good time with my family on a beautiful island on navacation, and all of a sudden, I'm like, men, take a look at that disaster. I didn't go immediately, but very very much. A few weeks later, I landed
in Dominican Republic. I drove to Havy with one simple intention. First to learn, because to help you must learn how help must be provided. But for me, it was the beginning of the creation of Wall Central Kitchen. That was very simple, to bring together the power of the food people of the Wall restaurants, chefs, food people, farmers to make sure that we will be able to answer to
emergencies quickly and fast. Unlike sometimes when other relief organizations go in to help people who are in distress, you don't just say here's some food, go cook it. You actually provide meals themselves. You cook the meals. Is that right at the very beginning, when there is destruction, used to think that you can get people food is used very naive when its destruction means that the homes are destroyed, there is no clean water, there is probably no gas,
people are probably in distress, looking for loved ones. When chaos and happens, just you cannot give people use dry beans and expect that that's all you can do. At the very beginning, it's very important that you move away the problem of where the food is coming from, where the water is coming from. This is one least less problem that they have to handle. So that's what we do.
We arrive, we see the situation, We start feeling people using whatever whatever possibilities we have in the places we go. Every situation has a different response. Let's talk about COVID. When COVID came, people stopped going out the restaurants. You had thirty restaurants. I assume you had to close virtually all of them, is that right? For a while, we we had to close all of that, but you still paid your employees for a while because you were nice
about it. But it wasn't that kind of expensive to paying people who weren't working. I mean, this is a decision I early will make again. My partners supported it, and then we were very lucky that then something called p P peeking. But when we made the decision, we kept everybody in peril for four or five six weeks and when you're talking about employees, that's a lot of money. But we had to do it because remember there were very cootic days. Nobody knew what was happening. We had
to close because it's a virus. When we will be reopening. Everything was kind of very complex, and we thought that being there next to the people at the beginning was the right thing. I will do it ten times over. So in this period of COVID, you have been feeding people in the United States who have lost their jobs, who don't have food. Did you ever think in the United States should be in a situation where people are
standing in food lines and quite the level that we've seen. Um, kind of we saw a glimpse when the federal government shut down. We don't realize that we had many Americans, hundreds of thousands of Americans, millions without a paycheck for six weeks. And some people could handle it, but was many, especially mothers, single mothers with few children, not pay checked
from the federal government. Many of them suffered. So we already began kind of a system where we were fitting over thirty six states and we were doing thousands and thousands of mills. These somehow was the training for what happened. I never reminded that we will have something like this, but we knew that America, as great of a country we have, it's a lot of people that they are
living under the poverty line. And when something like this happening, when people losing their jobs, an emergency situation like the one we were facing, that hunger was going to be open for everybody to see. Well, despite your efforts, which have been heroic, many Americans are going to sleep at night hungry. And I think there are large numbers of
tens and tens of millions of Americans. So is that because the government isn't getting food to people in addition to what you're doing, or people just don't have the money, or what is the basic problem? Well, what's in the kitchen? We are used the tip of the iceberg is many great organizations doing good work. But what happens is we don't have anybody that really is trying to coordinate everything. We saw in these pandemic hospitals without food because everything
was shut down. People were not going to work, cooks were not going to the kitchens. All of the sudden, you had hospitals that nobody was feeding. Organizations like World Center a kitchen. We had to activate that emergency. But then we saw millions of Americans losing their jobs, many
of them are undocumented. We I'm not gonna get political if we should be taking care of them documented or not, but this is the reality that we had millions of America undocumented work in the fields, so you and I we could have festivals in the supermarket, working on delivery, so you and I we could beginning food deliver home. We hadn't documented that they've been moving America through this pandemics. So is very clear to me that we must be
taking care of everybody. The federal government has possibilities to have a better way to keep everybody fed. The last big meaningful conversation about how to fit America happened in nineteen nine under the Nixon administration, which was the White
House Summit of sixty nine, fifty years ago. Over fifty years ago is what overdue that we have another food Summit at the White House where we bring the ideas that have worked in the past, new ideas that they need to be coming forward and improving, others that need some tweaking. We have the power to do it. I hope that in Disney administration and Republicans and Democrats together will come to allow those new ideas to come and flourish.
Now you've argued, I think that there should be a food ZAR and that Department of Agriculture should be maybe renamed Department of Food and Agriculture. Right now, who's in charge of food in the United States? Quite frankly, technically nobody, uh And I know some people would say, Jose, come on, I'm here, Jose, I'm here. We need the person next to the president that has the big political support and
the office we need. After September eleven, the the National Director of Intelligence Office was created to make sure that all the agencies and all the intelligence people will come together so we can be good defending America from a
possible terrorist attack. I do believe it's time that we will create also the Office of the National Director of Food and Nutrition at the White House, almost with a seat on the National Security Council next to the President, and making sure that we bring the resources of every single department. Foot is more than the U S. The A even is the obvious one, but food is also
the Department of Housing. We can end food desserts in every houseing project that the US Housing Department have is transportation because food also needs to have good mechanemic sims to bring food to the poor rural areas all across America. Food is also homeland security, It's food, dis immigration reform, food. It's so many things at once that that's why we need to take food once and for all. Seriously, So you campaign for um Joe Biden President Biden, Um, would
you've been interested in this job? Or you still got your restaurants in World Central Kitchen? So you're not gonna do something like that in the White House yourself? It was there nobody else. Maybe I could be a good a good leader on that front, only because I'm a hard worker. I'm creative enough, and I know who to bring people together. But me, quite frankly, I'm a guy that likes to be with wots on the ground. I like to see what's happening. So, uh it is me
one day, who knows I'm fifty one. Now. What I want now is to make sure the number one we recognize that we need that person, that we recognize we need that position, and that Actually I'm very happy with Secretary Bill set because we need somebody with expertise. Obviously, having a governor of a rural uh estate, Having somebody that has done ideas as Secretary of Agriculture is going to help enormously to put the USDA forward. And I
know he's coming to the position with both ideas. But I keep saying, we need the White White House Food Summit, and we need this new director National Director of Food the Nutrition. This is imperative. If we don't do this, we're gonna miss a lot of opportunities to maximize the potential of the many agencies coming working together. So when you're a chef, you're cooking elaborate me as for people. They then consume it in five or ten minutes. Uh.
Do you get pleasure at making people happy? Or do you say I work so hard on this and now it's gone in five or ten minutes. Well, sometimes I create dishes that they are used experiencing one second. Sometimes
a second is all it needs, you know. Sometimes one of the most amazing things if you get freshes now and you go out with a spoon and you grab the top of the snow fresh you get a little bit of honey on maple syrup and you put a touch on top, a little bit of salt, and you bring that snow that you came down and you put in your mouth. Your life is gonna change forever because that's gonna be the best or bad, the best that you've ever eaten. So it's very important to understand those moments.
So when you go home after a hard day at work, world's central kitchen or your restaurants, do you say to your wife, could you cook a meal for me? Or do you do all the cooking at home as well? No? She my wife has a lot of cooking at home, and my daughter's obviously she has more the traditional recipes that we always cook, like lenty or cheek peace with spinish. Those are dishes that are always in my home and
my daughter's love. But you don't say, honey, this isn't quite as good as I would have cooked it, or let me tell you how to cook this better. You never say that when my wife cooks is always the best meal. Okay. So if you were in a desert island and you can only have one meal, what would you want to eat? What is your favorite food eat? If I was in an one meal these uh, probably, without doubt, without doubt, I will say, give me an egg, an egg I love ex okay, I love fry egg.
Is the most complex thing in the history of mankind to fry an egg properly. Those people that will control the power to fry an egg, it's just people that they can't retire from anything else on life because it's the ultimate thing in life to now how to properly fry an egg. So around the world there is a rating system of great restaurants, a Michelin Guide. Do you pay attention to that kind of thing? Is that important to you Mischiling Guide stars? Or is that not that
big of deal. When I was fourteen fifteen years old in Barcelona, I will walk outside one to three Michelling Star restaurants only so I could have the opportunity to have a glimpse inside, because my family will not take them me. There were expensive restaurants. I still remember that my heart was kind of bumping the first time I came into a Michelling and Star restaurant in the kitchen no even to eat, so in my myself. Thirty five plast years later, obviously I have two restaurants with two
two Michelling Stars. Uh in l A and Miami, even De l A one is already closed. And the biggest joy of my life was the day we got those two star. Michelling Whill I wore hard to try to get in the future a third star. Sure, it's what you live in life for right it's Michelin has been here forever, is one of the big guys. I don't do it so much for Michelin. I do it for my team. I do it for me. I do it for the people. I do it for the pride. But do I would work in the future to try to
achieve through star Michelin? You bet I will for your humanitarian efforts. You've been nominated for the Nobel Peace Price, So I don't know, they said. But I don't know. But is that something you care about or you're more focused a lot of stuff? I mean quite frankly, all those things are are good for the forrest gum movies of my life. But at the end, what I care. I have hard time now knowing when there is an emergency and I'm not there right now next to be
with my family. My heart really is at his best, and I feel good with myself when I'm in a Maria in an emergency, knowing that we are bringing relief to others as I thank you very much for coming to my kitchen. I've been your kitchen many times. Mine is not quite as good as yours, but it's the best I have. Thank you very much. Thanks for listening to hear more of my interviews. You can subscribe and download my podcast on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you listen.