DAVID WEXLER FOR NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Natasha Pogrebinsky is one of a new brand of chefs helping to burnish Queens’ culinary credibility.
This plucky Queens chef began cultivating her outlandish sense of taste as a child in Ukraine, and now Natasha Pogrebinsky is putting her culinary mettle to the test on the popular Food Network show “Chopped.”
When Pogrebinsky, 32, appeared on the show, she was tasked with creating dishes from odd ingredient pairings — including making an appetizer out of snails and lemon bars for the cooking competition. The episode airs Tuesday.
“There’s no way anybody would ever cook with that in real life and call it a dish,” said Natasha Pogrebinsky, 32, of Long Island City. “Hopefully, it will show my passion for food.”
The Ukrainian immigrant opened the Russian-inspired restaurant Bear, on the residential border of Astoria and Long Island City, in 2011.
She is hoping that the exposure she’ll gain from her appearance on the 16th season of “Chopped” will drive more diners her way.
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“I love that I can experiment with food,” said Pogrebinsky, who trained at Manhattan’s French Culinary Institute, now the International Culinary Center. “I want to know what can I do with (ingredients) that hasn’t been done before.”
Queens, the country’s most ethnically diverse county, has burst onto the foodie scene during the last decade, burnishing its credibility with an array of authentic international cuisine. In recent years, a greater number of up-and-coming chefs have been finding a home in Queens.
Television appearances such as Pogrebinsky’s can enhance the borough’s culinary image, said local food blogger Joe DiStefano of ChopsticksAndMarrow.com.
“It puts Queens into the national consciousness,” said DiStefano. And “it gives Queens a culinary credibility beyond just weird, ethnic foods.”
Rob MacKay, who heads the Queens Tourism Council, said the borough has gotten a bad rep over the years. Many people still associate the borough with provincial characters like Archie Bunker, of the 1970s television show “All in the Family.”
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“Without a doubt, the (new culinary) shows put Queens in a positive image,” MacKay said. “And they also accentuate one of the best things in the borough — which is the quality and diversity of the food.”
Pogrebinsky’s brother and business partner Sasha Pogrebinsky, 29, said “Chopped” was uniquely suited for his sister.
As a child, she would order the “weirdest” plates on menus when their family would dine out, he said.
But “it would always be the tastiest thing on the menu,” he said of the snail and octopus dishes.
“She’s super-talented,” Sasha Pogrebinsky said of his sister’s cooking. “Her food’s unique.”
