How's this for a philosophical dilemma – the chef who thinks of himself as a piece of meat? "I was about to go around the world," Leon Borja tells me, "and it was kind of like I was being exported."
To clarify, Leon Borja doesn't spend the few hours he's out of the kitchen practising sautéing himself. The Brazilian-born chef is referring to the giant tattoo – a raw steak with a knife and fork either side of it – that's planted on the centre of his chest, emblazoned with the words 'salted in Brazil'.
Borja – who left his home country as a young cook, and who has worked in kitchens ranging from the Copacabana Hotel to Gordon Ramsay's Maze and Hawksmoor along the way – is inked. Very inked. And we're not talking about a few ship's anchors and a the name of his favourite football team. But rather, it's cutlery, sauces, fruit, vegetables, meat grinders and other kitchen miscellanea. "My favourite one is the Tabasco bottle," he tells me. Why? "I just really like Tabasco."
Not all tattoos have to mean something, I suppose. But most of Borja's do – none more so than the Brazil-shaped steak on his chest.
Photograph by David Harrison
Speaking of which, if you haven't noticed, we are by now thoroughly into the meat of the 2010s. A lot can change in a decade – and, as tends to happen, what was once a minor trend has becoming something approaching the mainstream: gone are the days when all chefs wore identical whites, cut their hair close and kept their skin ink-free. In 2014, a lot of the chefs cooking in our capital look more like Leon than Heston.
In 2014, chefs are the new rock stars. When I'm chatting with Borja, my first impression is that he's exactly the kind of person I'd expect to be covered in tattoos. He's emotionally-led, creative, impulsive and unafraid to take risks.
But compare that to Tom Sellers, founder of Bermondsey's Michelin-starred Restaurant Story – and the situation becomes a bit more difficult to psychoanalyse. He's a quieter, more introspective character – in many ways the yin to Borja's yang. So if it's not a personality thing, what is it?
"It's a very expressive form of art, when you cook with food," Sellers tells me, "and I think tattoos are very similar in that respect.
"It's an expression of something – whether it's a feeling, an emotion, or a time in your life. For me, my life is food – day and night. I'm a restaurateur. I think the tattoos are very much a separate thing."
He has a point. After all, if the only thing you see for 18 hours a day in the kitchen is food, why would you want to be reminded of it every time you look in the mirror?
Borja's view is different: "People sometimes think: 'What if you change your profession?', but I'm probably going to die on top of a stove," he says. "Chef friends like my tattoos; other people say: 'What the f*ck are you doing?'; and my dad doesn't know about 90% of them. The next time I get home to Brazil he's probably going to send me straight back here."
Photograph by David Harrison
The thought of Borja's father being unaware of his son having a mane of shoulder-length hair and a body covered with ink is an amusing one but, clearly, not all fathers feel the same.
Take Magnus Reid, for example, the young chef and founder of The Rooftop Café (and, more recently, Tuck Shop in Shoreditch): "My dad tattooed my leg when he came to visit," Reid recalls. "I remember my mum saying that he wasn't allowed to have any tattoos, so he did mine instead. It's fucking horrible, but it's up there with my favourites."
As an Australian-born emigré, a tattooed model-turned-chef and an occasional tattoo artist himself, Reid describes himself as having had something of a "stereotypical east London career", so what does he make of the ink insurgence?
"I suppose now people are noticing tattooed chefs because being a chef's trendy. I think back in the day chefs and cooks weren't necessarily the nice people in society. You've got nice chefs now, and that wasn't around when I first started cooking. They were sailors – that same kind of camaraderie you'd have in a situation as tense as running a service.
"I think tattoos came with being a risk-taker, and that want to be a bit edgy, because chefs were a bit more rough and ready."
Now, though, things are different. Where once you had to cover up tattoos in the kitchen, they're much more encouraged. At 30, Borja is the oldest chef in our inked fraternity, and he remembers having to hide his shame. "I've worked on a cruise ship twice, and had to cover up," he says.
As long as I don’t have guns and daggers, I'll still be able to get on Saturday Kitchen
"It was ridiculous. So, just to prove a point, I tattooed my knuckles. It's a bit of a revolt and a criticism to the part of the industry that still has something against chefs with tattoos – I was thinking of four-letter words to go across them, and it's like 'love/hate' but food-related, so I went with 'pork' and 'beef'." You can probably imagine a couple of four-letter words that might have been worse.
Photograph by David Harrison
If there was a stigma, it's now gone the other way. Tam Storrar, head chef at Soho's Blanchette, feels like it, anyway. He's only got what he calls "one piece", but it happens to stretch all the way up his arm, incorporating a pig's head and a garden of botanicals.
"Maybe ten years ago it would have been a problem," Storrar says. "But it's almost the opposite now. If you're working in Soho, or somewhere, it's almost a bonus.
"I almost wish that wasn't so, because it makes it something you're almost pushed to do. But as long as I'm careful not to have guns and daggers, I'll still be able to get on Saturday Kitchen."
Tom Sellers agrees. And he'd know, given that his CV lists jobs at pub kitchens and hotels to stints at legendary LA restaurant The French Laundry and Noma. "I think a kitchen is one of the few places you're not judged on your appearance," he says. "You wouldn't see a broker with tattoos all over their hands. But I think that's a reflection of our industry.
"It's an industry where everyone can express themselves. It's an expression – food, cooking, restaurateuring – a massively visual industry, so I was never judged for my tattoos. But I think now, more than ever, it's a generational thing. If you look at the chefs before us, a lot of them don't have tattoos. I think the level of the tattoo has definitely stepped up in the last five, ten years."
Photograph by David Harrison
There's not much that's similar about cooking and tattooing. Not unless you consider that they both involve working closely with meat, anyway. But I wonder if there's something deeper at work here, and Sellers does, too: "As a chef you can appreciate the detail and the creation that'll go into a tattoo in the way you would a plate of food," he says, "so I guess it's probably a similar love, and why a lot of chefs get tattoos. There's a huge craft element involved both with food and with being a tattoo artist."
Reid echoes his point. "At the root of it, cooking's a craft. It's the same as metalwork; it's the same as being a florist – it's a physical practice that you've had to learn. And the finished dish you might call a piece of art, if you're that way inclined, but it's the same as tattooing – it's method and procedure, and then a finished product."
It might be an unglamorous way of looking at it, but I can't help but agree with him. Nothing's a piece of art until it's finished – until then it's just a process. A fruit bowl isn't a piece of art until someone paints it or cooks it. A tattoo isn't a piece of art until the last of the ink's dried and the skin's healed.
We shouldn't get too tied up in discussing whether chefs and tattooists are two sides of the same coin. Instead we should be thankful that we're living in a city and in a time where both professions are riding a swirling wave of creative expression.
Their personalities are not only allowed but encouraged to flourish, and their work is no longer behind the scenes; it's there for all to see. I'll ink to that. ■
