Mashama Bailey

Mashama Bailey is the award-winning executive chef and partner of the critically acclaimed The Grey, set in a former Greyhound bus terminal in Savannah, Georgia as well as all-day counterpart The Grey Market in partnership with Johno Morisano. Since opening in December 2014, The Grey itself has earned a number of accolades, including being named a Food & Wine Restaurant of The Year, one of TIME Magazine's "The World's Greatest Places” and a semifinalist for the James Beard Foundation’s Best New Restaurant award, thanks in large part to Mashama’s flavorful dishes that highlight regional ingredients. In 2018, Johno and Mashama opened The Grey Market, combining their love for New York City bodegas - the true lifeblood of any New Yorker - with the history and convenience of the Southern lunch counter. 

With the premiere of Netflix’s Chef’s Table Season 6, Mashama became the first African American chef to star on the show. Prior to opening The Grey, Mashama worked under the tutelage of Gabrielle Hamilton at New York City’s Prune. 

Mashama is currently serving as the Chairwoman of the Edna Lewis Foundation, their mission is to honor and extend the legacy of Edna Lewis by creating opportunities for African Americans in the fields of cooking, agriculture, food studies, and storytelling.

In January 2021, Mashama and Johno debut their first book, Black, White and The Grey, which tells the story of their distinct partnership and how the two - a Black female chef and a White male entrepreneur - came together to build a restaurant attempting to reshape cultural conversation beyond food.

David Thomas

Chef David Thomas grew up watching his grandmother prepare culinary masterpieces from scratch. In her small kitchen on 13 acres of land, he learned at an early age that quality ingredients and knowledge from his elders and ancestors are the foundation of great food.  In 1992, David, along with his wife Tonya, started a small and successful catering company for 8 years. In his pursuit to elevate his skills, he then went to work for several notable companies and chefs including Master Chef Kevin Zabonick, Aramark Corporation, and Chefs Expressions with renowned CEC/sommelier Jerry Edwards. This was where David found that he had a passion for local ingredients.

In 2017, Chef David Thomas began work as Executive Chef and owner of Ida B’s Table in downtown Baltimore. Ida B’s Table, under the direction of Chef Thomas and his wife Tonya, focused on sustainability and/or locally sourced products. During his time David competed in multiple Food Network competitions. He won the competition show Bite Club based in Baltimore and earned the title of Bite Club Champion. David K. Thomas recently won the title of Chopped Grand Champion on Food Network’s show Chopped by competing 3 times against previous champions of Chopped. David loves sharing his passion for cooking with youth through the Days of Taste program. This program helps to educate 3rd-5th graders on where their food comes from, along with helping them learn healthy eating habits. David is working on developing a high school culinary program for developing future local and sustainable chefs. He is also working on developing a cookbook and a large catering business coming soon!

chefdavidthomas.com

Tonya Thomas

Growing up, Tonya was always fond of watching matriarchs of her family prepare meals for the whole family especially on special occasions. This love for cooking expanded and grew in Junior High School when she took her first cooking courses. That love for preparing a meal and watching others enjoy what she has cooked drove her to start a catering company and keep it going for a decade. In addition to running a catering company, Tonya started her experience in restaurants, after 18 years in other service industries, at Martick’s Restaurant and learned the ins and outs of the industry directly from Baltimore icon, Morris Martick. From there, she has also held positions at the venerable Dogwood in Hampden and Metropolitan Kitchen & Lounge in Annapolis. With that wealth of experience, she led the front of the house staff at the award winning Herb & Soul alongside her husband, Chef David Thomas for 3 ½ years. Together they opened Ida B’s Table in 2017 and made the restaurant’s mission to bring light to the history of Soul Food, and illuminate its future. With Ida B’s well established and continuing to win accolades from both local and national press, their new goal was to bring David’s mission to reclaim the narrative around African American cooking and soul food traditions to more prominent platforms. They stepped away from Ida B’s Table in March 2020. Tonya and David have been working together as a team for almost 27 years. Tonya has usually covered the front of the house along with baking and desserts responsibilities while David has done the cooking. They share a common bond for the love of food, family, cultural heritage, food sustainability and forming bonds in the community.

Maria Moor

Maria Moor is a civil servant living in the greater Washington, DC metropolitan area. She earned undergraduate degrees in the fields of Biology and Biochemistry, as well as a graduate degree in Security Studies. Leveraging her training, Maria has spent nearly 15 years safeguarding U.S. agriculture, with particular emphasis on protecting plant and animal health by preventing the introduction of harmful diseases, pests, and vectors. 

Michael Twitty

Michael W. Twitty is a culinary historian and food writer from the Washington D.C. area. He blogs at Afroculinaria.com. He’s appeared on Bizarre Foods America with Andrew Zimmern, Many Rivers to Cross with Dr. Henry Louis Gates, and has lectured to over 412 groups.  He has served as a judge for the James Beard Awards and is a fellow with the Southern Foodways Alliance and TED and was the first Revolutionary in Residence at The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. Southern Living named Twitty, one of Fifty People Changing the South and the Root.com added him to their 100 most influential African Americans under 45. Beyonce beat him out as number one. He also made the Jewish Forwards list of most influential American Jews. HarperCollins released Twitty’s The Cooking Gene, in 2017, tracing his ancestry through food from Africa to America and from slavery to freedom, a finalist for The Kirkus Prize and The Art of Eating Prize and a third place winner of Barnes & Noble’s Discover New Writer’s Awards in Nonfiction. THE COOKING GENE WON the 2018 James Beard Award for best writing as well as book of the year, making him the first Black author so awarded. his piece on visiting Ghana in Bon Appetit will be included in Best Food Writing in 2019 and was nominated for a 2019 James Beard Award. His ancestry hails from across West, Central and Southeast Africa; but his roots in Sierra Leone and nearby Liberia are Mende, Temne, Fula, Mandinka, and Loma.

Adrian Lipscombe

Adrian is an innovator that concentrates on community involvement through engagement acts such as green architecture, active transportation and sustainable food production. She is former the Bicycle Coordinator of the City of Austin and placed the successful bike share system. She has played a major role in the development of both the San Antonio and Austin bike share systems. She is currently working toward completing her Ph.D. in Community and Regional Planning at the University of Texas at Austin, specializing in the perception of minorities on transportation. She holds a BA in Architecture and a Masters in Architecture with a certificate in Urban and Regional Planning at UT-San Antonio. She currently owns a renowned restaurant in Wisconsin and has been featured twice in a year at the James Beard House. She is currently working on the inspirational project called 40 Acres Project. The 40 Acres Project mission is to preserve the legacy black agriculture and foodways in the United States. For more information visit www.40acresproject.com

Ada Anahgo Brown

Ada Anagho Brown, a native of Cameroon, launched Roots to Glory Tours in 2012 with the dream of reuniting African families and returning Africans in the Diaspora to the continent. As the third child of the current Chief of Ngwo of the Njikwa subdivision in Northwest Cameroon, Brown moved to the United States in 1975 when her father was on a diplomatic assignment. With her deep African roots and the strong African values and beliefs passed down to her from her childhood, Brown has facilitated the return of hundreds of African descendants as they traveled to the homeland of their ancestors. Among her many accomplishments, Brown was the lead organizer for the Panafest USA cultural festival, an annual event in downtown Silver Spring, Maryland. Additionally, she was a former member of the Advisory Committee of the Smithsonian Institute National Museum of African Art and the Montgomery County African Affairs Advisory Group.

In June 2020 she was voted by Ayoo Africa magazine’s Top Ten Curator in Washington, DC! Through her work with local communities, non-profits and Roots to Glory, Brown promotes the understanding of and unity between Africa’s peoples, culture and traditions, while also encouraging conversation, insight and cultural exchange between Africans in the Diaspora and their continental counterparts.

rootstoglory.com

Trina Michelle Robinson

Trina Michelle Robinson explores the relationship between memory and migration through installation, film, print media and archival materials. Her work has been shown at galleries and film festivals throughout the country including including the BlackStar Film Festival in Philadelphia, the San Francisco Art Commission Main Gallery, Catharine Clark Gallery, Minnesota Street Project, and Southern Exposure in San Francisco, New York’s Wassaic Project, and the Museum of Contemporary Art - Arlington. She has told the story of exploring her ancestry with The Moth Mainstage on stages throughout the country including New York’s Lincoln Center and NPR’s Moth Radio Hour. She previously worked in print and digital media in production and as a managing editor publications and companies such as The New York Times T Magazine, Vanity Fair and Slack and received her M.F.A. from California College of the Arts where she was also awarded the 2020 Yozo Hamaguchi Award. In 2022 she had a solo exhibition at the Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD), a Smithsonian Affiliate, as part of their Emerging Artist Program 2022-23 and will be included in the prestigious exhibition Bay Area Now 9 at Yerba Buena Center for Fine Arts in San Francisco October 6, 2023 through May 5, 2024.

trinamrobinson.com

Kaya Vision

Kaya has grown up around good food. His parents met in a restaurant and when Kaya was little his parents opened a restaurant where he learned how to function independently in the front of house.  After graduating high school from the Baltimore School for the Arts, Kaya went on to continue his acting studies, full time at Towson University. Throughout college, Kaya worked full time in cafes and restaurants.  His first focus in the food and beverage world was on high end coffee. He has gone through 4 years of coffee classes that included sustainability practices, origin, and brew sciences. Managing 7 coffee programs between the years of 2012-2017, Kaya ended up earning the name Bmore (Baltimore) Barista throughout Baltimore.  His focus started shifting to restaurant management. Having worked at multiple prestigious, award winning restaurants in their coffee programs or as a server, Kaya was ready for the next step. He believe that anyone in a position of management or leadership should be the ones empowering and supporting their associates rather than trying to control them. Creating a system of support became a priority at any position Kaya filled.  In 2017, Kaya was asked to join the opening team of Ida B’s Table. Ida B’s Table is a local- sustainable modern soul food restaurant that was led by the award winning Chef David Thomas.  As their lead barista, Kaya was asked to curate a coffee program that reflected the mission of the restaurant. Within 3 months, Kaya took on a management role in the front of house. Here, Kaya grew to learn the importance of having a reason for everything that goes into running a restaurant. The historical context, sourcing, and stories behind every ingredient, every bottle of liquor, every piece of art had to mean something in order to create a soul for the restaurant. At Ida B’s, Kaya wore many hats. He ended up being the bar manager, graphic designer, marketing person, FOH manager, and event coordinator at some point in his 3 years working there.  Currently, Kaya continues to consult at restaurants and cafes around Baltimore City as well as teaching at the Baltimore School For The Arts. Kaya still finds time to keep up on his art by performing in local professional theatre companies. He is taking a break from the restaurant industry for now in hopes to solidify a consulting business with a focus on beverages and management.