Mashama Bailey Transcript
Kerry Diamond:
Hi, everyone. You are listening to Radio Cherry Bombe, and I'm your host, Kerry Diamond. This is the final episode of our special Power Miniseries, which spotlights some of the amazing women on our first-ever Power list. You can find the list on cherrybombe.com or in the new issue of Cherry Bombe's print magazine.
Today's guest is certainly a powerhouse. It's Mashama Bailey, chef and co-owner of The Grey in Savannah, and the forthcoming L’Arrêt in Paris. Yes, Mashama Bailey is headed to Paris, France. Mashama is such a force in the food world and has captivated diners from around the globe with her take on seasonal, Southern cuisine at The Grey, the restaurant that occupies a restored Art Deco Greyhound station from 1938. Mashama has been the subject of a “Chef's Table” documentary on Netflix, has her own MasterClass on Southern cooking, and co-authored a memoir of sorts titled “Black, White, and The Grey: The Story of an Unexpected Friendship and a Beloved Restaurant.” Stay tuned for my interview with Mashama Bailey.
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Now, let's check in with today's guest. Mashama Bailey, welcome back to Radio Cherry Bombe.
Mashama Bailey:
It's so good to be back. Thank you, Kerry.
Kerry Diamond:
And you're a cover girl now. You're back and you're a cover girl.
Mashama Bailey:
My goodness. What an amazing cover. You all made me look real good. Thank you so much. I loved it.
Kerry Diamond:
The pictures are great. My only sadness when I look at that cover is that I wasn't at the shoot.
Mashama Bailey:
It was a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun.
Kerry Diamond:
It seemed like it, and I do love Savannah, and I love your restaurant. I'm lucky that I've been there several times now, and I can't wait to come back. It's been a while.
Mashama Bailey:
Yeah, I feel like now it has some freshness, some fresh air. We have a new GM there. My CDC is fairly new. He's only been with me for about two years, and he's been in this CDC position for a few months, so he's just kind of getting his legs. He's still pretty young. I can really help mentor him. I'm really sort of sharpening my mentoring toolkit because I've been such a dictator for so long that. Now, I'm like, "Oh no, you can't do it all." You really do need people to just kind of take over stuff.
Kerry Diamond:
You celebrated the 10th anniversary of The Grey. That is such a major milestone for every restaurant, so congratulations to you and your business partner, Johno, on hitting that milestone. I hope that makes you happy on some level.
Mashama Bailey:
Yes, of course. It makes me happy on every level, especially in 2025. We've had a real rough go of it halfway through. At the five-year mark, it was rough, and so even now, looking back, and it's been 10 years, you've learned some things and there's still a lot to learn. It's exciting, and I think that's the draw for me with the restaurants and being a chef. It's just like there's always something to learn. You're always learning. You're always growing. There's always a new way to prep an ingredient. There's always a new type of staff member that you have to mentor, like different personalities. It keeps you engaged, so I love it.
Kerry Diamond:
I mean, it's crazy to think how much you have packed into the past decade, and when you think that a big chunk of that decade was the pandemic.
Mashama Bailey:
I know, I know.
Kerry Diamond:
Which is so unfair. You did a MasterClass. You did a Netflix “Chef's Table.” I mean so many chefs’ dreams. You and Johno co-authored a book. You have a whole memoir out there about your relationship and the restaurant and the restaurant's origin story, and that's such a moving and unique book. I mean, you guys took turns writing like each chapter practically, but you've done all that, plus the restaurant in just 10 years. And you had a big birthday.
Mashama Bailey:
I had a big birthday. Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
I'm really in awe of everything you've done, and you are such a humble person, given all of it.
Mashama Bailey:
I'm just exhausted.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay, well, if you weren't exhausted enough already, you and Johno are opening a restaurant in Paris-
Mashama Bailey:
Exactly.
Kerry Diamond:
Which blows my mind.
Mashama Bailey:
It's wild.
Kerry Diamond:
You decided to open a place in one of the toughest cities. I once got locked out of an apartment in Paris. I don't know how we got locked out of her apartment, but we did, and my luggage and my passport and everything was in the apartment, and I think it took us two days to get a locksmith to get back into the apartment. So I am really curious, how have you rebuilt an entire restaurant?
Mashama Bailey:
Luckily, Johno is taking a lot of the lead on this. He's been really working on his French for the last six to seven years, and he's not quite fluent, but he's conversational. He can have a conversation. He's been able to really sort of be there physically. It's been two years in the making of us building this restaurant, so it all started with the book. So we went over to Paris for a few weeks and we had to rewrite the book, and so we wrote the second draft of the book, which is the draft that we published, and during that time, we spent a lot of time in restaurants, eating, drinking. We didn't cook that much. We really just wrote all day.
We went out for lunch, came back, wrote in the afternoon, talked to the staff in the evening, and then went out for dinner, and it was so romantic, right? It was like, "Wow, this is great. This is living." So then, that really gave us the lens to look through to see if The Grey even made sense over there. And also, I studied in France for about eight months and I was able to really live and cook in the countryside of France, which I think everyone should probably do, was really a very informative time in my life. I think it really informs how I look and approach Southern food, spending time in France.
And so, once we kind of decided to go forward and do that, really it was like, okay, maybe it'll happen, maybe it won't. And it just kind of fell in place where we acquired this cafe. In March of 2023, we took over this cafe. We kept it running as a cafe, and we did a few things with the chef, the original chef there that we just basically took from The Grey, and we did these things in Paris, and people liked them, and it was just sort of plat du jours, right? It was just plates of the day, and people liked them. And we closed down in August and then, it was like all hell broke loose. As soon as we started demoing in September of 2023, they just were like the co-op apartments that live there, the people who lived above the restaurant, they owned their apartments.
And they were just like, "Nope, nope, nope, nope." That's when we really kind of saw the effects of how the bureaucracy of living in a place like that, right? You really start to see the effects of it. And people were able to shut us down, and so we literally had to sue the tenants in order to move forward with the construction that was already approved by the city. So the city approved the construction. They approved the improvements to happen to this former cafe, future restaurant. The tenants were like, "Nope." They shut the whole thing down. So now, we're on the tail end of it. It's coming together. We're not in the space yet. I was just over there yesterday, actually. I kept back yesterday. We were organizing and cleaning up and everything.
We haven't started cooking in the space yet, but it's coming together, and I'm learning a lot about myself because I have not been working on my French for the last two years. I've been doing other things. So our chef there, he's from Algeria. He speaks mostly French. Very, very little English. I speak very little French, mostly English. And so, I realize communicating is going to be really hard. We need a mediator. I want to get back there. I'm going back in about a week and a half, so we can start testing recipes and really working out the menu together. And I think that's when we'll start to kind of understand each other a little bit more.
And he's come to The Grey and he's worked with us for a few weeks here and a few weeks there. But really, us being together in Paris, we're really going to kind of see how each other ticks and how each other works. And I'm confident it's going to work out, but the language barrier is going to be harder than I thought it was going to be.
Kerry Diamond:
We'll be right back with today's guest. The new issue of Cherry Bombe's print magazine is out now, and it's our first-ever Power issue. Inside, you'll find our power list of 100 women doing amazing things in the food world, plus recipes from folks like Meredith Hayden and Hailee Catalano and features on Gloria Steinem, chef Mashama Bailey, culinary creative Sophia Roe, and others. We proudly print our magazine at the family-owned Meridian Printing in Rhode Island. If you've never seen our magazine before, it's bold, beautiful, and thick, and is printed on gorgeous paper. You can subscribe at cherrybombe.com or pick up an issue at your favorite bookstore or culinary shop. Places like Bold Fork Books in Washington, D.C., the Beverly Hills Newsstand in Los Angeles, and East Elm Kitchen Company in Plymouth, Michigan. Visit cherrybombe.com for the full list of stockists.
You had said there's no shortage of people who want to work in Paris. Have a lot of people reached out to you?
Mashama Bailey:
My God, yeah. Tons of people, and they're all American, so there's that. And they all speak about the same amount of French as I do, so I'm like, yeah, okay.
Kerry Diamond:
My gosh, I'm going to throw my resume on top of that pile. Exactly.
Mashama Bailey:
But we have some good candidates. Right now, the hiring is a little slow. We're being very cautious. I don't think we need a lot of people. We're going to really work over this summer to tighten up the menu and really work on the menu over the summer. It's kind of prime time. It's really slow there. A lot of Parisians go away in August, so we're not going to open up before September. So it gives me another two months to work out some of the kinks in the kitchen, and work out some of the kinks with the ingredients that we're going to choose to use there, because I want to represent the South. I want to represent Port City Southern, but I really have to think about how we're going to get those things over there because I did a cornbread for an event in April. And I don't think that was cornmeal. I think it was polenta. We have to really kind of figure those things out.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah, corn isn't a big ingredient over there.
Mashama Bailey:
So I remember when I was back in 2007, 2008, when I was working over there cooking over there, everyone was saying how they gave corn to the livestock, like, "Oh, okay." All these beautiful fields of corn. It's for the cows. Got it. It's for the pigs.
Kerry Diamond:
I think they might've said the same thing to me. Yeah. It's not for humans. I was like, we love corn. We love corn. You weren't at Le Cordon Bleu, were you at La Varenne?
Mashama Bailey:
La Varenne, yes, I was at La Varenne.
Kerry Diamond:
And were you the last class of La Varenne?
Mashama Bailey:
The last class of La Varenne. I just made it through. Yeah, so worked with Anne Willan, and she is a firecracker. Her daughter actually came to The Grey recently, and I was just so excited and happy and her son reached out to me right after that. And so hopefully ... She's in London now, so hopefully I'll get to see her or she'll get to come and see the restaurant because she really inspired me to take cooking seriously. Before La Varenne, I was a personal chef, and I had done the restaurants, and it's hard. Being a woman in New York City restaurants is really hard. Being a Black woman in New York City restaurants is super-duper hard.
And I was a career changer, so I was a little too old for the bullshit, but also willing to get my hands dirty and work those hours and prove myself. And it was tough. I leaned on the fact that I wasn't making any money to kind of take a step back, and I started doing personal cheffing. And then, when I realized that that was just a road to nowhere for me, I wanted to go back into the whole restaurant thing. But I took a pause and I went over to Paris and I went through her program at La Varenne, her stage program at La Varenne, and she was running recreational classes, but she was working with some French-speaking and some only English-speaking culinary students or chefs, young chefs to help her run these classes.
And she was providing an externship. So it was like you would go, you would work for two months and then, she would sponsor you for a month in a restaurant in France. And so, I made the program, wrote an essay, got accepted, ended up being the last class, because her husband got sick, and so she wanted to shut the whole thing down after that, but she had already basically advertised for this season and she wanted to go through with it. Ended up doing that, but really the culture was, so went through the program. It's a 10-week program, and at the end of it, you take a written exam and then you also do a cooking exam, and she grades you on both.
And she's not an easy grade. She's really sort of very firm. I tried to make tea for this English woman. She yelled at me. It wasn't dark enough, so I was like, okay. Ended up going through that, and she was impressed. She liked the way that I cooked. That was nice. I was like, okay, cool. This is great. We had a one-on-one after the examinations, and I told her that I wanted to be a food writer. I was like, I want to be a food writer. I used to write poetry when I was like eight, and I want to write about food. And she was just kind of like, "Okay, I think you should cook," because a lot of people want to cook, but a lot of people aren't good at it.
And I think you're good at it. And I'm slightly paraphrasing, but that was basically what I heard. And so I said, okay, cool. But I wasn't convinced. So being a part of the last class, she gave us an option to help her break down her Chateau. Me and a few other chefs ended up extending our stay, and we helped her break down, pack up this building that she had been living in for decades, all these cookbooks and manuals and all these kind of wonderful things. And we broke down her library and she had a lot of cookbooks from everyone, and a lot of people signed and dedicated cookbooks to her. And I picked up “The French Laundry Cookbook,” and Thomas Keller wrote something to her like, “Well, thank you for your advice, your sound advice. You really helped me, and I really appreciate you.”
And I was like, well, if Thomas Keller was taking her advice, maybe I should take her advice too. So I ended up ... After we kind of broke down the chateau, I ended up coming back to the states, and I was on this kind of tip of Southern food, French food, Southern food, French food. Because being in the country, you start to romanticize, but you also ... There's this practicality. You farm it, you pick it, what are you going to do with it? You have to pickle it, you have to preserve it, you have to store it some kind of way, and that really gave me fond memories of when I would visit my grandmother, my mom's mom in Waynesboro, Georgia. She had nine children, so she was always figuring out ways to preserve ... She always had a pot on the stove.
And it just was making those connections. So when I came back to the States, I started looking in the South, and I was like, "Oh, maybe I'll go to Atlanta or Charleston." I was like, "No, I don't know if that's what I want to do." And so I ended up in New York City, and I ended up going to work for David Burke and Donatella, and that was kind of my deep dive back into fine dining.
Kerry Diamond:
When did you feel you were ready to run your own kitchen?
Mashama Bailey:
I think about around the time I met Johno, I think I was ready. I didn't know what my style of cooking was or was going to be, but I knew that if I were to leave that I was not going to want to work under another chef. I knew I didn't want to go back into the same type of kitchen I had got out of. I was like, "Well, maybe there's something smaller I can do, or maybe I can open up a small place in Queens." I was living in St. Albans, Queens, at the time. St. Albans was a little bit of a food desert, and I thought, there's not a lot of restaurants. There's a lot of takeout places, but not a lot of sit-down restaurants in St. Albans.
And I was like, well, maybe I can do something small out there and just have a little kind of supper clubby kind of thing, a little pop-up kind of thing. And this was right before supper clubs were like, boom, everyone was doing a supper club. And so, I thought, well, maybe that's what I'll do. And I started to have these little dinners at my grandmother's house. I mean, she had everything. She had platters, she had pots and pans, she had a deep freezer. I was like, "Oh, this is ..." She had a smoker in the backyard. I was like, "Damn, I can do this here. This is a restaurant." And I think exploring that idea, I realized that I was like, "Well, maybe it's not so scary."
And so it's like, maybe I can open up my own restaurant. I wasn't thinking of it in terms of I was going to be a chef who ran a team. I thought of it in terms of like, "Oh, I can cook, so I'm just going to cook."
Kerry Diamond:
That's so crazy because then you wind up at The Grey, where not only are you running a team, but this was a really important restaurant. I mean, when I think about restaurants that are essential, restaurants that exist in America today, if I had to put a list of those together, I would put you way up on that list.
Mashama Bailey:
Dang, girl. Thank you.
Kerry Diamond:
You just said something inside you that you wanted to do and make for people.
Mashama Bailey:
Well, one thing I did know is that I needed it to come from someplace, right? Someone said ... Keke Palmer, I love Keke Palmer. She was like, “My ancestors were slaves. So I'm deep.” And it's just like, yeah, right. I knew it had to come from some place. It has to come from somewhere in order to resonate. All the food that I eat comes from somewhere, and that was the mindset that I had when I went into The Grey. When we opened The Grey, when I wrote that menu, that initial menu, it was all the place. And then as soon as I thought about where it was going to come from, it started to make sense and it started to come together.
It had to come from some place. That's what I ate. That's what I lived off of for the first four years of The Grey. I was like, where does it come from? Where does it come from?
Kerry Diamond:
Can you explain that a little bit more? When you're saying “Where does it come from?” Do you mean your history-
Mashama Bailey:
All of that?
Kerry Diamond:
You're not talking about where I'm sourcing, you're talking about inside?
Mashama Bailey:
I'm talking about where I'm sourcing, where does it come from? Where am I sourcing this food from? Because it has to taste like something. It can't be this over-farmed or over-produced ingredient that doesn't taste like anything. It can't be that. It has to taste like something. So where does the food come from? Where are the ideas coming from? And the ideas are coming from a cookbook. They're coming from conversation or they're coming from past experiences. And it had to resonate with me. If it didn't resonate with me, if it didn't make me ask questions, then I didn't put it on the menu. That's what I mean when I say it had to sort of come from some place.
And I really thought about what my grandmothers fed me. I really thought about what they talked about around the table, especially my paternal grandmother. She was extremely influential later in my life when I was a chef, when I was first starting out as a chef, I was living with her. She loved food. She loved entertaining. She would wake up in the morning and want to talk about what she was going to have for dinner. And she took us, she put us in the car and she would take us to the docks to buy fish. She would take us out on Long Island to buy vegetables. She would take us to the grocery store, and she would always kind of ... Almost talk about food in a spiritual way, and now she had a “Joy Of Cooking” cookbook that was dog-eared and stained up to death.
But it had to kind of move her. She had to have a taste for it, and I let that influential part of my life take over how I thought about food more than looking at a cooking channel or more than going to a restaurant and being inspired by someone. I let those memories take over that imaginary part of my brain or that process for me.
Kerry Diamond:
When you did that Southern Foodways Alliance meal, I can't remember whether it was a lunch ... I think it was a lunch, right?
Mashama Bailey:
It was at lunch.
Kerry Diamond:
You did the luncheon. Did you do a lunchbox?
Mashama Bailey:
I did.
Kerry Diamond:
That just popped in my head.
Mashama Bailey:
That was interesting, because yeah, that was probably the first year I met you. I know that Rob did a dinner on the first night. He did this journey through rice and ingredients. I remember, I think I still have the pamphlet. Then, the-
Kerry Diamond:
God, we worked so hard on that pamphlet. Yeah. Rob, my former business partner.
Mashama Bailey:
Yes. And then the next day, I did a boxed lunch, and I did oyster hand pies, red rice, and I did fermented collard greens stems. I don't know why I did that. And then, I did a custard or something like that, with this broken-up cotton candy, shattered candy shell on top. And John T. Edge was like, “Listen, you're in a bus station. We'll do a lunchbox. Everyone will have it on their table.” And he made it look like a little suitcase and it had all these Savannah stickers on it and everything. It was so cool. People still talk about that lunch to this day. They talk about that lunch to this day, and that was kind of like my coming out story. It was like, "Oh, who's this girl?" Okay.
Kerry Diamond:
Given that, you care so deeply about where things come from on all these different levels that you just discussed, does that make Paris harder? America is a big place, you spent time in New York, you spent time down south, but France is its own whole new thing. How do you translate that to a foreign country?
Mashama Bailey:
I'm still figuring that out because just last week we placed a pantry order and I had no idea where anything was coming from. It was just coming from this purveyor. I'm trusting my people, obviously, but I don't have a big connection with like, "Oh, what does this vanilla taste like and where is this vanilla coming from," or anything like that. That worries me because I'm really behind, and so I need to dive a little bit deeper into that and do a little bit more ... I would like to do a little bit more focus on that, and I think it's just going to take me time to find it. And it took time in Savannah. It took time to kind of find those things. You scratch on the surface and then all of a sudden things start to open up and I think that's how it's going to happen in Paris.
I'll order and then, I'll like something or dislike something, and then we'll try something else, and then, I'll talk to people and I'll ask questions, and then, I'll shop around. The great thing about Paris though, is there is a lot of accessibility. You get to know, but even when we were talking about chickens, I was like, well, what kind of chicken am I going to get? Okay, I'll get the chickens from this area, but what type of bird am I going to serve at the restaurant? That's important. It's going to be a lot of fun because you get to cook like that here, but it's on a different level there.
Kerry Diamond:
I want to go back to something you talked about earlier, that you're at the stage where you want to do more mentoring and that it's been hard up until this point, for all the reasons we know, all the moving parts that are involved in a restaurant. Talk to us a little bit about that and entering that phase and what you are hoping to be in a mentor versus your life as a mentee.
Mashama Bailey:
I think that what I would love to be is transparent, but transparent mentor. I really want to give people some real-life advice and some real-life circumstance because it isn't always what you think it's going to be. I would like to be more accessible and available to people than I have been in the past, and I think that requires me to be a little bit more organized and have a little bit more assistance in doing that. I would just like to be a person that can advise you on writing a menu or opening up something or just be available. I want to be accessible. And I think I haven't been because of all the things that we've been talking about, because it's just been a really intense, busy 10 years.
And there's been learning curve after learning curve after learning curve. There's so many news, new this and new that. One of the things that people have asked me is like, well, how do you accredit your success or what made you want to do this? And one thing that I've kind of been doing lately is a lot of yes and. Almost like improv, like yes and, yes and. What comes after. What comes after. And I didn't even realize I was this ambitious. I was just sort of ... I'm not going with the flow, but I'm also kind of like, "I'm hungry." And I think that there is a discipline to that and I think really learning how to be disciplined and really giving people some advice around that, I think is important.
Kerry Diamond:
What are some of the most frequent questions you get from folks looking for advice? Because we could do some instant mentoring right here.
Mashama Bailey:
Most people want to know how I ended up where I'm at. And I think that a lot of it is just really trusting my gut and trying to surround myself with people who are like-minded. And also, what I think as a woman, the best advice I can give is figure out who your support group is. Figure out those people who are going to cheer you on and give you the correct advice, not just yes advice, but give you the correct advice. Who are considering you as a person, as a whole human being and your goals and help to support you in those goals. And I was fortunate enough to have people around me like that.
People who never understood or never stepped in a professional kitchen in their life are a lot of the people who I seek advice from, because they don't have a dog in the fight, right? They look at me as a person. They can tell if I'm dehydrated. They can tell if I'm not focused and they can sort of advise me on how to take care of me. And I think that that's a really important thing. I think you really do have to take care of yourself first. And that's so hard to do when you're running a restaurant. You don't really consider that, right? There's all this guilt, there's all this stuff, but that's the best way to run a slightly healthier version of what we came out of, is to be able to take care of yourself. That's an important lesson that I keep trying to tell myself to do.
It's like, you're enough. You're enough. You can show up just exactly how you are and you are enough. And I think that for a long time, I didn't consider myself to be that because as a chef, you're constantly chasing that high of that great dish or that great service or those reviews or articles or whatever the thing is that drives you, but you're enough. You're enough. You feed people, they're happy, and that's enough. And I think that sometimes we have to accept those small wins and be happy with those small wins in order to make room for the bigger ones.
Kerry Diamond:
Can you talk about career pivots for a minute? You used to be in the corporate world.
Mashama Bailey:
I did. Yeah. I feel like I've done everything. That was a big deal because I was 24, 25 when I decided to start cooking. I thought I was too old and I was a little afraid of that. And I think that pivoting is important because that's really what drives you. You should pivot in the direction that you want to go into, and it should be driven by that love and that discipline on what you want to do. If it's not fueled and it's not fueled by love or ambition, then it's not going to be sustainable and you're not going to be able to really own and hold onto the things that you need to hold onto in order to get through the hard parts of it. If I wasn't so in love with this business and so in love with what I do for a living, I don't think I would've made it through COVID.
I wouldn't have made it through the last 10 years. I wouldn't have made it through the 10 years before that. That got me to that day sitting in front of my business partner to say, "Hey, okay, I can do this." I'm a sous chef at a 32-seat restaurant, but I can move to Savannah and open up a restaurant in a historic bus station. That's wild to just say yes, and I'll do that. I think that I don't know what gave me the confidence, but I knew that I could do it. I just knew I could do it.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay. A few more fast mentor questions. When people come to you and say that they want to be a chef, what do you tell them?
Mashama Bailey:
I say, “Really?” When they tell me they want to be a chef, I say, “Okay, cool.” I say, “Who do you want to be like? Who are you cooking like?” And then, I tell them to get into a kitchen and work in a kitchen. That's the first thing. I'm not interested in culinary school. I'm not interested. Go to the best kitchen within your reach and try to work there, at least for a few months to see if you like it and then decide if you want to be a chef.
Kerry Diamond:
So, culinary school is not necessary.
Mashama Bailey:
It was necessary for me, but I don't think it's necessary to know if you want to be a chef, I think you should know that before you go to culinary school. I think you should know if you can handle it a little bit before you go to culinary school. It's interesting because culinary school is a gateway to a lot of different things. Food media is huge, and some people go to culinary school in order to do that. I think if you want to be a chef, I think you need to get in the kitchen and I think you need to work with a chef that you admire, seek advice from a chef that you admire and see if it's something that you can handle because it's not an easy thing to do to stand up for 14 hours a day and peel vegetables.
You are not doing a lot of cooking for the first few years. If you're in a good place. If you're lucky, you're not doing a lot of cooking in the first few years, you're doing a lot of knife work, you're doing a lot of standing, you're doing a lot of grunt work and see if you can be happy in that place, and if you can be happy there, then you should pursue being a chef.
Kerry Diamond:
What about young people who want to have their own places today? I hear that and see that more and more. If a young chef comes to you and says, “Mashama, I really want to have my own place. Should I leave my job and open my own restaurant?” What do you tell them?
Mashama Bailey:
I would probably say then, “You're not a chef.” I think being a chef is being able to run a team, being able to teach people, and I think if you're young and you don't really know much, what are you teaching people that consider you a person who's opening up a restaurant, you're a cook, but to be a chef at such a young age, I think that's a really heavy title to give someone with not a lot of experience. I think it takes experience to be a chef.
Kerry Diamond:
You mentioned that food media was of interest to you, and when you were at La Varenne, you thought that might be the path that you were meant to take. Do you ever regret not taking that path?
Mashama Bailey:
No, absolutely not.
Kerry Diamond:
No. You kind of are food media now. I mean, you've had documentaries made about you, you've got a book, you do have all these fascinating things. Is that an itch you want to scratch a little bit more?
Mashama Bailey:
Yes and no. I'm really content in doing what I'm doing. I'm really content in thinking food. I really want to solidify my voice, our voice at The Grey, right? I want to expand what Black food looks like. I want to continue to work on telling black stories through food, and I think that I'm happy in this sandbox. I'm really happy being here. I want to do more of it. I think the last 10 years, there's been so much going on that when I'm cooking, I'm happy and I like that part of it. So yes, of course, I want to grow, and I think if that's part of my growth, then I accept that.
Kerry Diamond:
Who is a powerful woman you admire in the food world?
Mashama Bailey:
Tiffany Derry. I think that she is a powerhouse out in Texas, and I really admire her. I think she has the brains. I think she has the vision, and I think she's building a legacy, and I really admire the way that she runs her show. I really do. I think she's great. There are many others where she pops out to me.
Kerry Diamond:
And a powerful woman you'd like to cook for one day? You've cooked for a lot of people.
Mashama Bailey:
I have cooked for ... I would love to cook for Michelle Obama. I've been listening to her and her brother's podcast lately, and they are so charming. And she just seems cool. I would love to cook for her.
Kerry Diamond:
Was Barack in office when you opened The Grey?
Mashama Bailey:
Yes. Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah, I bet they'll make it there one day.
Mashama Bailey:
I hope so. I hope so.
Kerry Diamond:
We'll put that out into the universe or in Paris. My god.
Mashama Bailey:
Paris.
Kerry Diamond:
How much fun would that be?
Mashama Bailey:
That would be amazing. That would be amazing.
Kerry Diamond:
You know they go to Paris.
Mashama Bailey:
I know.
Kerry Diamond:
Michelle, Barack, you need to-
Mashama Bailey:
Come on through.
Kerry Diamond:
You need to stop by.
Mashama Bailey:
I got a table for you.
Kerry Diamond:
I hate to ask this question, because I remember when people would ask it for me, and I would have a nervous breakdown. Do you have a rough opening date?
Mashama Bailey:
September. September.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay.
Mashama Bailey:
Yeah, we're going to swing the doors open. We're going to play around over the summer, but September is when we're open. Yeah. Mid-September. It's so funny because I thought I was going to be in there. I just got back. I was there, the first two weeks of June, and I thought that I was going to be cooking in the space by June 4th, and I haven't cooked one thing in the restaurant. So those dates are scary because you think you're going to be open, and the next thing you kno,w two weeks go by and you haven't gotten in the space yet. So cautiously, mid-September is when we think we'll be open.
Kerry Diamond:
Barack and Michelle's assistant can pencil it into their schedule. It's good for them to know.
Mashama Bailey:
I love it.
Kerry Diamond:
All right my friend, well, bon chance as they say.
Mashama Bailey:
You're so sweet. This was fantastic. I love talking to you. Thank you.
Kerry Diamond:
That's it for today's show. Thank you to Mashama Bailey for joining me and to Veuve Clicquot for supporting our Power Miniseries. If you missed any of our previous episodes with Kristen Kish of “Top Chef,” Katina Connaughton of Single Thread Restaurant and Farm, or Victoria James of “Wine Girl” and the COTE restaurants, be sure to go back and give a listen. Our theme song is by the band Tralala. Special thanks to Good Studio in Brooklyn. Our producers are Tarkor Zehn, Catherine Baker, and Jenna Sadhu, and our editorial coordinator is Sophie Kies. Thanks for listening, everybody. You are the Bombe. Don't forget, use your power for good.