book review: black, white and the grey

​BLACK, WHITE AND THE GREY:  The Story of an Unexpected Friendship and a Beloved Restaurant
Mashama Bailey and John O. Morisano
Lorena Jones Books, 2020
$28.00

 
This isn’t an easy book to classify.  Is it a cookbook?  Yes and no.  There are recipes for sure and they are really good by the way. Is it a memoir?  Yes and no.  It does tell life stories but not in the way you might imagine from a traditional memoir.  In my mind it is the story of reflection and change.  It’s the story of two people with great skill, imagination and talent who come together from vastly different backgrounds to create something brand new from something quite old.
 
“The Grey” is a restaurant located in Savannah, Georgia and located in the old Greyhound Bus Terminal.  The bus terminal has a long history in Savannah and much of that history is tainted with the racism that was and, unfortunately, still exists in our country today.  The good news is the partnership of Johno Morisano, a businessperson and entrepreneur and his amazing chef/partner Mashama Bailey created something new on the edge of Savannah’s historic downtown business district.
 
Mashama Bailey is an African-American chef born in the Bronx and raised in both Queens, New York and Savannah, Georgia.  She was trained at “Prune” the iconic New York restaurant.   Her partner, John O. (Johno) Morisano is a multiple entrepreneur and business leader who purchased “The Grey” without a chef but eventually convinced Mashama Bailey to give their partnership a chance.  It worked!
 
The book is part cookbook, part discovery, part primer on how to open a restaurant and ultimately a reflection on how two different Americans can come together from different backgrounds and create a successful restaurant and encourage each other to put it all on the line and take a leap of faith.

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