Spanish celebrity chef feeds Beirut blast victims

Andrés, originally from Asturias, has lived in the USA for over 25 years and runs the ThinkFoodGroup restaurant chain, which famously pulled out of a deal to open an eatery in a planned Trump Towers hotel in Washington DC in protest over the then presidential candidate's disparaging comments about Latin American migrants.

As well as his successful dining enterprise, Andrés runs the charity World Central Kitchen, which gave out free sandwiches and soup last January to long-unpaid civil servants during Trump's shutdown and provided meals for evacuees in the Bahamas during Hurricane Dorian.

Andrés, additionally, offered a job to the dinner lady who was sacked for letting a schoolboy have a free US$8 lunch because his parents could not afford to pay.

Once again, the chef has come up trumps for an international disaster, having just landed in the Lebanese capital and, in one day, distributed 6,600 sandwiches in 30 different points in the city.

On his Twitter site, @chefjoseandres – the username for which he has changed to 'Please wear a mask! Do it for USA, please...' - Andrés writes: “Hello from Beirut! Late here...but checking in from World Central Kitchen headquarters with the team. Tomorrow [for today], 6,600 meals to 30 locations...here's the start to the map! We are activating more restaurants and kitchens this week – more news soon!”

Earlier, he posted pictures of his workers in Baltimore preparing pre-packed meals to fly over to Lebanon.

On his arrival, Andrés posted a video of himself and captioned it: “Update from the streets of Beirut in the Mar Mikhael neighbourhood where cleaning continues after the explosion. Amazing to see young people leading the way. We at World Central Kitchen have been feeding many volunteers and tomorrow will have a tent here with food!”

José Andrés has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize as a result of his commitment to victims of major disasters and his active involvement in humanitarian missions.

He always travels to the 'ground zero' of these catastrophes to help out in person – the video he made of himself in the Bahamas showed him battered by torrential rain and barely able to stay on his feet with the force of the wind – and has been described by those who know and have worked with him as 'an exceptional, generous and compassionate human being'.

After the blast in Beirut, the Lebanese government resigned en bloc in response to mass protests and calls for answers.

Moving footage has shown residents whose homes were completely destroyed being reunited with their rescued pet cats and dogs, clinging to them and sobbing.

José Andrés owns restaurants in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Miami, San Francisco, Washington DC, México DF, and the island of Puerto Rico, where he also handed out food to victims of Hurricane María.

The above photograph, from the star chef's Twitter site, shows him shortly after landing in Beirut late on Monday.