Chef helps build a better world one dish at a time
Jose Andres has spent much of his time contemplating the unifying nature of food, both in and out of the world’s most dangerous conflict and disaster zones.
Days before an Israeli air strike killed seven members of his aid organisation working to feed Palestinians in Gaza, he spoke about his recently published cookbook, Zaytinya: Delicious Mediterranean Dishes from Greece, Turkey and Lebanon.
The April 1 Gaza bombing that killed his fellow aid workers thrust him further into the global limelight, and spurred international calls for accountability from the Israel Defence Forces and for an independent investigation.
In addition to owning dozens of restaurants around the world, the Spanish chef has become synonymous with food aid through his organisation World
Central Kitchen, which dispatches chefs and other volunteers to feed people in the wake of wars and natural disasters.
“I wish the world was run by people that cook and feed because this is something that brings everybody together,” Andres said three days before the attack.
The Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean regions have always been particularly dear to him. The sights, scents and tastes have proved somewhat of a compass for the chef, especially over the past 22 years.
At Zaytinya in Washington – a haute but tradition-minded exploration of Lebanon, Turkey and Greece – he pursues the culinary ties found across these cultures and the birthplace of some of the world’s most ancient and influential cuisines. He hoped his new cookbook would further share the beauty of the region.
The venue opened in 2002, the kind of place where Lebaneseinspired butternut hummus, Turkish braised lamb shank and Santorini-style whole fish sit side by side – ideally on a table with friends and family. Eventually, he would expand this restaurant to Florida and New York, and soon, to Palo Alto and Las Vegas.
At Zaytinya, the focus is on dishes’ shared connections. And in the cookbook, items enjoyed across the regions are titled in multiple languages.
“The meaning to me of culture
is not something exclusive, but something inclusive,” he said. “It is not something that only belongs to you, but belongs to everybody.”
The Zaytinya cookbook arrived six months after The World
Central Kitchen Cookbook, a sprawling, colourful collection of global recipes from Andres and other chefs, and one that raises funds for the organisation.
“People were asking for the recipes because it’s amazing the love that people put in recipes in emergencies,” he said. “It’s amazing the diversity of meals we have done throughout our history.”
In many ways, the cookbooks are wildly different: Zaytinya, he said, was about feeding the few, while The World Central Kitchen
Cookbook was about feeding the many. But in some ways the ideas were similar in translation and global nature: with the former, the recipes came from the restaurant and its connections to the outside world; in the latter, the world served as the restaurant.
Though the chef said he had tried to keep his restaurant empire separate from his humanitarian organisation, the ethos sometimes overlapped. Zaytinya doubled as a hub for nourishment and aid in March 2020, when Andres flipped the restaurant and his others into community kitchens during the pandemic.
“Water and food need to be named and seen as a universal human right,” Andres said. “Every human on Earth, every child, should have access to food and water, no matter what. I don’t know anybody that disagrees with this statement, but then we don’t make it happen. And we are leaving people hungry.”
Andres said he understood that one restaurant, one cookbook, one non-profit group could not solve this. Still he felt he had to try, and that the accumulation of efforts could make a difference.