Mashama Bailey

The Climb

Technique came first, then range, then point of view. Mashama Bailey trained at Sullivan County Community College and Peter Kump's New York Cooking School before entering New York City restaurants through an internship at Aquagrill in SoHo, New York City from 2001. She moved through David Burke, Donatella, and the Oak Room in the Plaza Hotel in New York City, where each kitchen added another register to her work. By the time she became sous-chef at Prune in New York City from 2010–2014, the basics were already firm: discipline, attention, and a cooking style starting to hold its own sense of place. Since 2014, Mashama has been chef of The Grey, a post that anchors the restaurant’s identity as much as her own. Since 2017, she has also served as chairwoman of Edna Lewis Foundation, extending that work into the preservation of culinary legacy. In 2018, she became co-owner of The Grey Market, adding ownership to a career that has stayed close to the practical realities of kitchen work.

Today

These roles keep Savannah at the center of the operation. The city functions as more than location; it shapes the cadence of the cooking and the terms on which her Southern food is read. Across kitchen leadership, institutional work, and ownership, Mashama Bailey brings the same measured seriousness to each line of responsibility.

Signature

Mashama's signature dishes include Chicken Country Captain, Shrimp and Grits, Short Ribs with Spiced Peanut Sauce, Red Velvet Cake with Coconut, and buttermilk sheet cakes. The list shows a broad working range: savory dishes, old comforts, rich seasoning, and dessert with the same steady hand. The thread between them is not novelty but control, with tradition carried forward in a way that stays legible at the table.

In Their Words “I love shopping for ingredients, working within a team and sharing the results with others.” Taken together, those lines describe a practical way of working. Ingredients, crew, and service sit in the same frame, with the final plate understood as something made for others. The second sentence places Southern cuisine in context: not as an abstract style, but as food read through the region that produced it.

Recognition

Mashama's honors include James Beard Award for Outstanding Chef (2022) and James Beard Award for Best Chef of the Southeast (2019). Those awards mark two public points in a career built through training, repetition, and a clear line of cooking. They also confirm what the work itself already shows: a sustained command of Southern food and the structures around it.