Mashama Bailey | |
---|---|
Born | Mashama Bailey |
Education |
Francis Lewis High School Sullivan County Community College Brooklyn College Institute of Culinary Education |
Culinary career | |
Cooking style |
Southern cuisine French technique |
Current restaurant(s)
| |
Previous restaurant(s)
| |
Television show(s) |
Mashama Bailey is an American chef trained in French technique who is currently cooking Southern cuisine. In 2019, Bailey was awarded a James Beard Award as best chef of the southeast. [1] In 2022, Bailey was awarded a James Beard Award as Outstanding Chef. [2]
Mashama Bailey was born to David and Catherine Bailey in the Bronx. [3] She was the eldest of three with one sister and one brother. [4] Bailey moved to Waynesboro, Georgia at the age of 2, Savannah, Georgia at 5, and then to Queens, New York when she was 11. [5] Bailey learned to cook from her mother and grandmother. [4]
After graduating from Francis Lewis High School, Bailey attended Sullivan County Community College [3] where she studied physical therapy and later switched to social work. [6] Early in her career, Bailey worked at a homeless shelter in Brooklyn, New York. As the project underwent changes she was let go, an experience that became a catalyst for her to explore the culinary arts. [7] She enrolled in Peter Kump's New York Cooking School, and after graduating began her culinary career at Aquagrill in SoHo. [7]
Bailey, interested in exploring the wider range of careers available in the culinary arts, took a break from the restaurant industry, during which time she worked as a personal chef on the Upper East Side. [8] This left some of her family concerned with the racial and class dynamics, as it seemed a return to how her grandmother migrated from Georgia to Manhattan and worked as a maid. Bailey's grandmother worked within several households, one of the more famous beings that of Art Carney. [3]
Working as a personal chef didn't inspire Bailey as she had hoped, and during this time she applied for a work-study program that led her to Château du Fey in Burgundy, France. [4] There she was mentored by Anne Willan who advised her to continue cooking in restaurants instead of exploring a culinary writing career. [9]
Bailey started her career as an intern at Aquagrill in 2001, and also worked at David Burke and Donatella, and the Oak Room in the Plaza Hotel. [10] In 2010, Bailey was hired at Prune, where she was quickly promoted to sous-chef and worked for four years. [11]
Startup entrepreneur John O. Morisano heard about Bailey through the chef and owner of Prune, Gabrielle Hamilton, and reached out to her about a long-abandoned, former Jim Crow segregated Greyhound station he'd bought in Savannah, Georgia. [12] [13] Across the street from the property is the Chatham County Courthouse where Bailey's parents were married in the 1980s. [14] The restaurant, named The Grey, was nominated for the 2015 James Beard Foundation Award for Best New Restaurant. [15]
On October 15, 2018, Morisano and Bailey opened The Grey Market in Savannah inspired by Southern lunch counters and New York City bodegas. [16] Since 2017, Bailey has served as chairwoman of the Edna Lewis Foundation, which works to "revive, preserve, and celebrate the rich history of African-American cookery by cultivating a deeper understanding of Southern food and culture in America." [11] [17]
She was a featured chef in the sixth season of Netflix's Chef's Table and was a guest on season 14, episode 6 of Top Chef.