Do we like José Andrés?
Our score: 8 out of 10. Consistent humanitarian work and a record of speaking up for immigrants and gay parents, held back by management questions at his charity.
José Andrés is the Spanish-born chef who made his name in restaurants, then built World Central Kitchen in 2010 into something closer to a first responder. The idea is simple: when a disaster or war hits, cook hot meals for the people caught in it, fast. His line about it is that he doesn’t believe in higher walls, he believes in “longer tables”.
His best-known stoush is with Donald Trump. In 2015 Andrés pulled out of a restaurant lease at Trump's Washington hotel after Trump's remarks about Mexican immigrants. Trump's company sued for $10 million, Andrés countersued for $8 million, and in April 2017 they settled with terms undisclosed and a statement about moving forward as friends.
The Trump saga didn't end there. Joe Biden awarded Andrés the Presidential Medal of Freedom on 4 January 2025, and less than three weeks later Trump posted a notice "dismissing" him from a presidential fitness and nutrition council. Andrés replied that he had already resigned the week before because his two-year term was up, and urged everyone to put name-calling aside.
On the harm test he comes up clean. When conservative commentator Ben Shapiro tweeted about a Disney film with a same-sex relationship in 2022, Andrés answered that gay people are good people and “great parents”. He has also backed immigrants against Trump, and in 2026 he told an Atlanta summit that the world has to solve the energy problem of the poor, because cooking fuel is a big part of hunger.
Gaza is where people split. After seven WCK workers were killed in an Israeli strike in April 2024, he called it “unforgivable”, said the war looked like “a war against humanity itself”, and wanted an independent investigation. Israel called the strike a mistake and its military later dismissed two officers; where you land depends on whether you read his words as grief and a demand for accountability or as too harsh on Israel.
The less shiny chapter is inside the charity. Bloomberg's December 2023 feature said some workers tied WCK's recent scandals to the dark side of his style, following earlier reported sexual harassment allegations that led to a leadership shake-up. The reporting we opened is thin on detail, and nothing we found accuses him personally of misconduct, so it earns an asterisk, not a fail.