A newcomer any Austinite should welcome: Savannah chef Mashama Bailey's Diner Bar
Downtown's Thompson Austin hotel gets a welcome taste of Southern cooking from a James Beard Award-winning talent
https://www.statesman.com/story/ente...el/7757513001/
Many Austinites view outsiders with enough skepticism to fill Darrell K. Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium. Maybe you’ve seen the “Don’t Move Here” bumper stickers or drunk from the font of memes side-eyeing Californian carpetbaggers.
While much of the pearl-snap-clutching borders on performative disdain, there exists an undeniable indifference to many imports. That dynamic extends to the restaurant world.
You could count on one hand the number of out-of-town celebrity chefs who have landed on Austin’s shores to much applause, or even wide acknowledgment, and still have a finger or three to spare.
Foie gras and grits showcases chef Mashama Bailey's love of French and Southern flavors.
Mashama Bailey might be just the right person to challenge the old-line thinking. The New York-born (and mostly raised) chef won a James Beard Award for best chef in the Southeast in 2019 for her work at The Grey, the Savannah, Georgia, restaurant she and partner John O. Morisano opened in a renovated Greyhound station in 2015. Weeks after opening her upscale Diner Bar and more casual Grey Market at the Thompson Austin hotel this spring (a move two years in the making), Bailey took home the Beard crown of most outstanding chef in the country.