Mashama Bailey Kept Getting Fired and It Was the Best Thing That Ever Happened to Her

On this episode

In our second episode, Food & Wine's executive features editor Kat Kinsman speaks with the inimitable Mashama Bailey from The Grey in Savannah, Georgia. You may know her from Chef's Table, her James Beard Awards for Best Chef: Southeast and Outstanding Chef, or her book Black, White and the Grey, which she co-authored with her business partner Johno Morisano. You may have caught her on a screen on the back of an airplane seat, sharing the secrets of Southern cooking. Mashama Bailey is everywhere — as she should be!

But before all that, she was going to cooking school, getting a degree in social work, getting fired from jobs that just didn't feel right, and not quite feeling like she had found her place. And then a fateful trip came along that set her on the path to superstardom. Mashama and Kat talk about Kool-Aid "thrills," the magic of Zabar's pickles, managing frustration and anger in a healthy way, and the beauty of having a Black woman in charge of a restaurant.

Meet our guest

Mashama Bailey is the executive chef and partner of The Grey in Savannah, Georgia — a restaurant that Food & Wine and Travel + Leisure named as one of the World's Best Restaurants on 2019. Bailey has been profiled on the Netflix series Chef's Table, co-authored the book Black, White, and The Grey with her business partner Johno Morisano, and won James Beard Awards for Best Chef: Southeast in 2019 and Outstanding Chef in 2022. She serves as Vice Chairman on the board of the Edna Lewis Foundation.

Meet our host

Kat Kinsman is executive features editor at Food & Wine, author of Hi, Anxiety: Life With a Bad Case of Nerves, host of Food & Wine's podcast, and founder of Chefs With Issues. Previously, she was the senior food & drinks editor at Extra Crispy, editor-in-chief and editor at large at Tasting Table, and the founding editor of CNN Eatocracy. She won a 2020 IACP Award for Personal Essay/Memoir and has had work included in the 2020 and 2016 editions of The Best American Food Writing. She was nominated for a James Beard Broadcast Award in 2013, won a 2011 EPPY Award for Best Food Website with 1 million unique monthly visitors, and was a finalist in 2012 and 2013. She is a sought-after international keynote speaker and moderator on food culture and mental health in the hospitality industry, and is the former vice chair of the James Beard Journalism Committee.

Advice from the episode

Groceries are a love language

My grandmother would always keep the refrigerator really, really full with groceries. That was her love language, right? She would curse you down from your head to your toe. But she would feed you after.

Called to greatness

I got a phone call last night from someone who has been working with me for years. He said, "I'm sitting at this bar, and I just decided to come out and treat myself. I'm looking around, and everyone looks the same." And he said, “I just want you to know that I'm very grateful for the environment that you've created because everyone doesn't look the same, and they still feel validated and comfortable in that environment." He never calls me. I didn't know what he wanted. I was like, "Oh God, is he gonna quit?" And he just called me to tell me how he appreciated working with us and appreciated the fact that he's working for a Black woman. Because he feels unique and special in that way. He saw the beauty in it.

Patience takes practice

Even if I were home and we were doing a barbecue at my grandmother's house and people would be like, "Ugh, I don't wanna help Mashama. She's gonna yell at me." Or, "She's not gonna say please and thank you." I got this really rushed sort of way of working with people, this lack of patience I developed in those [restaurant] environments, which then manifested itself as frustration. It wasn't until we opened up The Grey where I was like, "Oh, you're frustrated 'cause you don't know what you're doing. You're frustrated 'cause you're not prepared." You have someone coming to you, asking you for information that you don't have ready and now, you are defensive, and insecure, and being put on the spot. Those parts were triggering, and I was yelling at people because I was so insecure about being prepared. 

You know what I was trying to work out? Not trying to regret any interaction when I walked away. I would get home, lay down, and I'd be like, "I could've been a little bit more patient with this process." I just found myself doing these apology tours throughout this kitchen and the restaurant that was just like, "OK, it's not them. It's you, and you need to figure out what's setting you off." It's the pressure? Fine. We're all under pressure. Is it exhaustion? Fine. We're all tired. But that doesn't give me the right to blame you for me not preparing you properly.

About the podcast

Food & Wine has led the conversation around food, drinks, and hospitality in America and around the world since 1978. Tinfoil Swans continues that legacy with a new series of intimate, informative, surprising, and uplifting interviews with the biggest names in the culinary industry, sharing never-before-heard stories about the successes, struggles, and fork-in-the-road moments that made these personalities who they are today.

Each week, you'll hear from icons and innovators like Guy Fieri, Padma Lakshmi, David Chang, Mashama Bailey, Enrique Olvera, Maneet Chauhan, Shota Nakajima, Antoni Porowski, and other special guests going deep with host Kat Kinsman on their formative experiences; the dishes and meals that made them; their joys, doubts and dreams; and what's on the menu in the future. Tune in for a feast that'll feed your brain and soul — and plenty of wisdom and quotable morsels to savor.

New episodes drop every Tuesday. Listen and follow on: Apple Podcasts, Google, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, TuneIn.

Editor’s Note: Please be mindful that this transcript does not go through our standard editorial process and may contain inaccuracies and grammatical errors.