Patxi Andres Schmid

A VENEZUELAN chef living in London has been hosting a series of themed dinners to “give something back” to his home country after it was devastated by natural disasters earlier this year.

Patxi Andres Schmid, who lives in Mildmay, has been leaving in the UK for 10 years after leaving his home in Caracas.

Since leaving the Venezuelan capital, he has navigated a difficult relationship with his national identity, as the country has struggled through political challenges, repression and economic destitution.

“For a long time, I didn’t want to cook Venezuelan food, I didn’t want to wear red because it is associated with the government.

“I felt conflicted about the flag and other symbols of Venezuela,” he said.

“But in recent years, many Venezuelans across the world have been taking back our identity, whether through food or music.”

When news broke of a devastating earthquake across Venezuela earlier this year, Mr Andres Schmid felt he “had to do something” to help the situation back home, where some of his friends and family still live.

He now runs monthly Venezuelan pop-up dinners, cooking classic dishes and raising awareness about the difficulties facing those who live in the South American country.

At the most recent pop-up dinner last week at Tollington’s Fish restaurant in Finsbury Park, Mr Andres Schmid cooked fish and prawn empanadas, and fried plantain – the Venezuelan classics that take him back to beach trips from his childhood.

He left the country at the age of 21, and his parents were forced to leave years later because of the deteriorating political dictatorship and worsening economic situation.

“It got really unsafe for them to live there – they couldn’t find medicine, there was a scarcity of food,” the chef added.

Venezuela has a global diaspora of eight million people, a strikingly large number when compared to its total population of 32 million.

“A lot of people have kind of said, ‘oh don’t make this earthquake political’. But of course, all of this stuff is political. The earth­quake devas­tated the country and so many buildings, because they were built improperly for political aim.

“Under the dicta­tor­­ship that we’ve been under for the past 20 years, government bodies to help these sort of things have all been run down.”

Mr Andres Schmid added that he wanted the pop-up dinners to be a space to hold difficult conversations about Venezuela, and to educate people who may not have any idea of the situation.

He said: “Each time, we might only raise a few hundred pounds, which is a small amount of money when you consider how much the earthquake affected people.

“But the most important part is raising awareness about what’s going on there, bringing attention to it, and building a community of Venezuelans and Latinos in London. And anybody else who wants to join!”