Chef José Andrés Supplying Food In Louisiana After Hurricane Ida

BETHESDA, MD — Celebrity chef, World Central Kitchen founder, and Montgomery County restaurant owner José Andrés is on the ground in New Orleans, supplying over 100,000 meals to people in need following Hurricane Ida.

"We were able to come from Haiti, where men and women at World Central Kitchen are doing meals all across the south," Andrés said in a video he posted to Twitter.

World Central Kitchen is a non-profit that responds to both natural and manmade disasters by setting up pop-up kitchens to feed the populations there.

The team had been serving meals to the people in Haiti who survived the earthquake there. In Louisiana, they started off centralized and sheltered in place when the hurricane approached, until they are able to go out and feed more people.

"After the storm passes, we can then do what we always do," said Andrés, a 2019 Nobel Peace Prize nominee. "Go to other cities, and very quickly fire up the kitchens we have in position there."

Hurricane Ida hit Louisiana as a Category 4 storm 16 years to the day after Hurricane Katrina hit, the AP reported. It has since weakened to a tropical storm.

Andrés, a Bethesda resident, opened Spanish Diner on Bethesda Row earlier this year, after closing his earlier restaurant Jaleo to create a community kitchen during the pandemic, which was in the same spot.

"People will be able to take food home or people will be able to eat from a take-out window right outside the restaurants, where we will have some tables in the terrace," Andrés said at the time.