AT HOMELESS EATERY
EDINBURGH: Hundreds of cheering fans greeted Leonardo DiCaprio on Thursday as the Hollywood star visited a restaurant set up to help the homeless here.
The Oscar-winning actor signed autographs for his admirers — some of whom had waited for hours — as he arrived at the Home restaurant, which opened in September as an initiative to support homeless people.
DiCaprio’s visit to Home sees him follow in the footsteps of George Clooney, who last year visited a sandwich shop run under the Social Bite initiative.
The Home eatery in the Scottish capital is the latest venture in the Social Bite scheme, which has establishments here, in Glasgow and Aberdeen, and runs a four-year programme to provide employment to homeless people.
The concept is the brainchild of entrepreneur Josh Littlejohn, who has brought in restaurateur Dean Gassabi to run Home with a French and Scottish menu.
One of the beneficiaries is Biffy Mackay, 28, who helped prepare DiCaprio’s meal and said she had been nervous about his visit.
“He was so nice, so down to earth. I told him I’ve loved him since I was 9 and that I did project about him at school. said ‘that’s so cool’.”
Elise Lovell won a competition to join the actor for lunch and described the experience as “quite surreal but a fantaswintic couple of hours”.
Donald Trump ning the US presidential election was mentioned, Lovell said, to which DiCaprio “kind of laughed and said it was definitely a shock to a lot of people”.