Introducing a new feature, Ink Spotted, in which Eater talks to DC's tatted chefs and gets the stories behind their most intriguing ink.
Our inaugural column stars, Rory Kraus, the pastry sous chef at Ris. He got his first piece on his 18th birthday as a good old-fashioned f-you to his parents: "I had come out to them and it didn't go over so well," he says. "So, my best friend and I played hooky from high school and I got an om symbol on my left hip."
Getting a Sanskrit sign was even more of a middle finger to his 'rents because Kraus grew up in a Catholic household. "But I cast away Catholicism when I was told that because I was gay I was going to hell," he says. "I didn't see how I could be created in his eye, but be hated for who I am." To this day, his parents still don't know that he got the tat — or any of the others that dot his back and torso. "I don't take my shirt off around them," he reveals.
Right now, none of his pieces visually reference his career as a baker, but Kraus has plans to add one that does. "I have an obsession with Hello Kitty; not many men would admit that," he says. "So I want a chef-style Hello Kitty with the hat, a whisk and a bowl, but I don't know where I'm going to put it yet."
—Nevin Martell
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