José Andrés

Internationally recognized as a culinary innovator, José Andrés is a James Beard Award-winning chef and owner of ThinkFoodGroup. TFG is the team responsible for Washington, D.C.’s award-winning restaurants Jaleo, Zaytinya, Oyamel, Café Atlantico, and minibar by josé andrés, as well as Los Angeles’s celebrated destination The Bazaar by José Andrés at the SLS Hotel at Beverly Hills. José also serves as culinary director for the SLS luxury hotel brand, a collaboration with sbe and Philip Starck. He next opens in Las Vegas at The Cosmopolitan with a redesigned Jaleo and a festive Chinese-Mexican spot called China Poblano.

GQ magazine’s 2009 Chef of the Year, José is credited with introducing Americans to both avant-garde and traditional Spanish cooking. At Jaleo, he helped create one of the first critically and commercially successful tapas restaurants in the country. With the opening of his innovative minibar by josé andrés, Food & Wine hailed José as the “hero of the Spanish revolution,” who “helped create the Spanish food boom in America.” And The New York Times called him “the boy wonder of culinary Washington.” The James Beard Foundation recognized him with the award for Best Chef: Mid Atlantic in 2003, inducted him into the Who’s Who of Food & Beverage in America in 2007, and nominated him for Outstanding Chef in 2008, 2009, and 2010 for his work at minibar. His restaurants Zaytinya in Washington, D.C., and The Bazaar by José Andrés in L.A. were nominated for Best New Restaurant. He was recently profiled on 60 Minutes and appears regularly on NBC’s Today show. He’s been profiled in numerous magazines and newspapers, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Bon Appetit, and Saveur.

Often referred to as Spain’s unofficial ambassador to the U.S, José is also host and executive producer of the PBS series Made in Spain. He has authored several cookbooks, including the companion to the PBS series, Made in Spain: Spanish Dishes for the American Kitchen and Tapas: A Taste of Spain in America. José is also a television star in Spain, where his production Vamos a Cocinar on Televisión Española (TVE) was the country’s most popular cooking program, revolutionizing food television in Spain. It now airs across Latin America and in some American markets on the Casa Club cable network.

José is also known for championing the role of chefs in the national discussion on hunger and nutrition issues. Following a recent trip to Haiti, José launched a nonprofit, World Central Kitchen, which aims to feed and empower vulnerable people in humanitarian crises around the world. He is Chairman Emeritus for DC Central Kitchen, an organization that combats hunger and creates opportunities with culinary training. He participates in the First Lady’s “Let’s Move” initiative to fight childhood obesity. He has been tapped by Commerce Secretary Locke to serve on the US Travel and Tourism Advisory Board. This fall, he will be lecturing on culinary physics at Harvard in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. He lives in Maryland with his wife and three daughters.