Community Foundation of the Lowcountry, Inc.

Make Shrimp and Grits with Mashama Bailey

LocationHilton Head Island, South Carolina, United States

Grantmaking areaHumanities in Place

AuthorAlexandra King

PhotographyKristian Zuniga for Mellon Foundation

VideoKristian Zuniga and Derek King

DateFebruary 3, 2026

Mashama Bailey, James Beard Award-winning executive chef and partner of the critically acclaimed The Grey in Savannah, Georgia, as well as the newly opened L’Arrêt by the Grey in Paris, France.

A celebrated chef takes on an iconic Savannah dish, with a nod to the region’s history and heritage.

Mashama Bailey is a founding member of the Muloma Heritage Center, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving African Atlantic food culture.

Bailey is the executive chef and partner of The Grey, an award-winning restaurant in Savannah, Georgia. She’s the first Black female chef to be nominated for a James Beard Foundation award. And she’s gone on to win twice.

She was also the first African-American chef featured on Netflix’s Chef’s Table, a wildly popular streaming series that introduced millions of viewers to new cuisines and told the stories of the chef creators behind them.

Learn how to make her soulful, region-driven take on shrimp & grits.

The Unsung Ingredients of Southern Food

Make Shrimp and Grits with Mashama Bailey

Chef Mashama Bailey’s Shrimp and Grits

Shrimp Stock Ingredients

8 qt ruby red shrimp shells
5 lb fish, heads and bones
4 qt onion, sliced
2 qt celery, sliced
2 heads garlic, cut in half
1 qt white wine
12 oz tomato paste
28 oz whole tomato, peeled
14 quarts fish stock

Middlins Ingredients

1 qt Carolina Gold rice grits
3 qt shrimp stock
1 pt onion, diced
1 cup celery, diced
1 cup shallot, diced
1 pt white wine
½ cup extra virgin olive oil

Preparation

To start making the shrimp stock, roast fish bones in a wide rondeau or braising pan. Remove the fish bones and set aside.
Roast the shrimp shells in the same pan.
Add onions, celery and garlic. Sweat and add tomato paste. Cook the tomato paste until it turns a rich rust colored red.
Add white wine and scrape up all the bits from the bottom of the pan.
Add back the fish bones and shrimp shells. Add the whole tomatoes and fish stock.
Bring to a boil and simmer for 3 hours, seasoning with a healthy pinch of salt.
In a separate wide pot, sweat the onions, celery and shallots in the olive oil.
Add the rice grits and stir to coat and toast in the oil.
Add the white wine and reduce until the pan dries out again.
Ladle in 2 quarts of the shrimp stock and stir over a low simmer. Let this reduce and get absorbed by the rice.
Keep repeating this process until the middlins are just cooked and the stock is absorbed.