What Some Of Kristen Kish's Tattoos Really Mean
Chef Kristen Kish grew famous as the winner of season 10 of the hit Bravo TV show "Top Chef." Kish was trained in the classic French cooking style at Le Cordon Bleu in Chicago and has served as chef de cuisine of Barbara Lynch's restaurants Stir and Menton, both located in Boston. She is the author of the cookbook "Kristen Kish Cooking" and now the owner of her own restaurant, Arlo Grey, in Austin, Texas (via Bravo).
Kish was born in South Korea and adopted by a family from Michigan. When she was young, Kish says she wasn't happy with her appearance. "One thing that I was always trying to do was to manipulate my appearance in some way," she told Inked.
As she grew older, as she began to experiment with different cooking techniques and cuisines, Kish continued to alter her appearance, this time through tattoos. Today, she has a plethora of black tattoos covering her arms, all of which she says have "very personal intent and purpose" (via Inked).
Kristen Kish's inked tributes to chef life
Kish's first piece of ink was her Korean name, which is tattooed across her wrist. Kish's other tattoos are clearly inspired by her trade and "her collection includes a woman holding a chef's knife, a butter knife, a fish skeleton, herbs, a whisk, and many more tools of her trade," reports Inked.
One of Kish's more elaborate tattoos stands as a tribute to the geographies that have influenced and shaped her culinary career. "I have lines in the shape of a human going down the back of my neck, and on the side of my neck I got the shape of the Austin River that moves into the shape of the Boston Charles River, to show how Austin and Boston are kind of connected to me," she told The Slant (posted at Medium).
Kish said all her tattoos have meaning to her, although that meaning might not be clear to others. "I like to have tattoos that are slightly obscure, that by the naked eye people might not be able to tell what it is or why I decided to get it," she told Inked.
Sounds like Kish's tattoos, just like the dishes she invents for Arlo Grey, are reflections of her creativity, history, and passion for the culinary trade.