With so much news of late it has taken Thursday Food a few weeks to publish our personal congratulations to Chef Mashama Bailey on copping her second James Beard Award.

The Grey’s executive chef and managing partner on Monday, June 13, won the coveted James Beard Award for Outstanding Chef. Bailey was in 2019, awarded the James Beard Award for Best Chef in the Southeast. She was nominated in 2018, a recognition, that marked her as the first female African American chef to be nominated in a best chef category in the history of the event. “Today, a little black boy or a little black girl can see themselves as a future outstanding chef,” Bailey said at the 2022 awards ceremony at the Lyric Opera of Chicago.

“They can see themselves in a space that they have never seen before and do what they can not think is possible. And until just a few minutes ago, that was me.”

Thursday Food had the distinct honour thanks to the Rockhouse Foundation’s fund-raising weekend Getaway with The Grey, held from April 1-2 of meeting and enjoying the palate-exciting dishes of the award-winning chef.

Founders of Savannah, Georgia-based restaurant The Grey, John O Morisano and Mashama Bailey travelled to Jamaica to support the Rockhouse Foundation, which has been doing transformative work in Westmoreland for two decades.