"José Andrés’ path to rock star status is an evolution that says as much about Washington as it does about Andrés," writes Michael Schaffer. | Cliff Owen/AP. His Capital City column chronicles the inside conversations and big trends shaping Washington politics.
But pretty much any statement asserting culpability in the Israel-Hamas war is liable to piss someone off. And that’s something Andrés hasn’t had much experience with in the years since he ascended from being a mere proprietor of critically acclaimed eateries to being a thought leader, humanitarian icon, and secular saint for the nation’s capital.
The Spanish-born chef is not one to shrink from conflict. In his early years in Washington, as he turned his first small-plates eatery into an empire of envelope-pushing restaurants in a formerly forlorn part of downtown, he was hailed as a guy turning around the capital’s once-sleepy dining scene — but also was known for pushing back against critics and editors whose work he deemed insufficiently positive.
Andrés, in turn, was able to use the proximity to politics-and-government circles to make himself more than a celebrity chef. It’s hard to imagine an equally philanthropic and ambitious chef in Chicago or Boston being able to access the same networks that helped grow World Central Kitchen into an emergency-food-aid colossus. On his podcast, he has guests like Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Sen. Cory Booker, former national security adviser Susan Rice and actor-cum-former California Gov.
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