Andre Rush: A Life of Service

The Army veteran has cooked for presidents and the Pentagon. Now, he’s using the power of food to heal fellow veterans and inspire the next generation

Standing at 5 feet, 10 inches and some 270 pounds with his famous 24-inch biceps, chef Andre Rush is used to drawing looks. But these days, they’re usually from excited 10-year-olds wanting a hug and photo with their “superhero,” he says.

Rush, a retired U.S. Army Master Sergeant, was a White House chef through four administrations, cooking during the Clinton, Bush, Obama, and Trump years. He now hosts the Gordon Ramsay-produced show “Kitchen Commando” to kick struggling Washington, D.C., restaurants back into gear.

Armed with heart and hospitality, Rush uses cooking to create community and raise awareness about mental health, especially for fellow veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), preaching love and service everywhere he goes. He’s proud that his message reaches young people—because the future generations need it, Rush says.

“There may be one little nugget in there who’s going to be Chef Rush times a thousand, and he or she is going to … find someone else to keep pushing it along,” Rush said.

An Unexpected Path

Cooking was never meant to be a career, said Rush. Growing up poor in Mississippi, cooking was caring and love in action.

One of Rush’s brothers was a Marine, the other was a Navy officer, one of his sisters was an educator who helped the blind, and his mother “cooked for everyone in Mississippi,” feeding all who needed it. Their father led the siblings—five girls and three boys including Rush—to pick food on local farms by hand, to embed fortitude and hard work in their characters. It taught him always to be the hardest worker in the room. It impressed upon him the value of service.

So Rush, who said he had earned an art scholarship, a track scholarship, a football scholarship, and Olympics prospects, decided to join the military himself. He soon joined the food service team only to learn it was nothing like what he thought cooking was about. “It’s mass feeding,” Rush explained. “Feed and go.”

But less than a year into his military career, Rush said a Sergeant Major came up to him out of the blue, told him about a culinary competition, and asked him to train for it.

“I didn’t even know what ‘culinary’ meant,” Rush said. He went down to train at the United States Army Culinary Arts Team annual competition in Fort Lee, Virginia, and saw that the hobby he grew up with, cooking alongside his mom, was a serious culture in and of itself. Sugar pulling, ice carving, pastry creation—it ignited the artistic side of Rush. “I just became infatuated with cooking,” he said. In the pre-internet era, he bought books