Meet The Chef

With over 25 years of experience in the food and restaurant industry, Kristina is a highly seasoned chef based in the Lower Hudson Valley / Greater NYC area. Her love and penchant for delicious, healthful, and beautiful food drives her passion and her daily life, both professionally and personally; she is ever on a quest to make the most nourishing and satisfying foods possible, whether for clients, loved ones, or herself!

Kristina fell in love with cooking at the ripe young age of 9 and so, fresh out of high school, she went to study culinary arts at The Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY.  Among other honors and awards, she graduated from the CIA as valedictorian of her class in 1998.

She became immersed in the world of NYC restaurants in 2000 at the NY Times 3-starred Union Pacific, under Chef Rocco Dispirito.  She quickly rose to be the first and only female sous chef in Union Pacific’s cut-throat kitchen, and after 5 years at the stove, left to collaborate further with Dispirito.  During this time, she co-authored several cookbooks with him and was culinary producer for the show Rocco to The Rescue, as well as spearheading numerous public events and private chef dinners.

She went on to work at two of Danny Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group restaurants, first-off, managing the original Shake Shack in Madison Square Park, where she also worked on recipe/menu development.  She then worked as the lead pastry production chef at the world famous, Michelin starred, Eleven Madison Park under Chef Daniel Humm for 2 years.

Kristina, next broke into the world of magazine publishing in 2009 as a food editor at Martha Stewart Living magazine.  There, she created recipes and luscious food stories, bringing them to life on the pages of the magazine.  In the 3 years at Martha Stewart Omnimedia, she honed her skills in recipe development and food styling, as well as working on the show, Martha Bakes.  Martha also invited Kristina to cook a recipe she had developed for Living (which had graced the May 2012 cover) on the final episode of the Martha Stewart Show.

She left Living in 2012 to pursue her love of cheese, and become partner of Salvatore Bklyn Ricotta with her dear friend, and cheese genius, Betsy Devine.   Among many of her responsibilities there, she concentrated on product and business development, but her greatest joy was being hands-on at the cheese vat, putting much love into batch after batch of locally produced artisan ricotta.
 

As part of Kristina's personal health journey, she has recently graduated from the Institute of Integrative Nutrition as a health coach. Though her expertise in the world of cooking runs the gamut, her current work concentrates on three areas: cooking nutritious foods for private clients, conducting private health-driven cooking lessons, and recipe development in the world of wellness.

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Kristina believes fervidly in the concept of food as medicine - the power of healing and optimizing one’s health through the foods with which we fuel ourselves.  Her current focus - where the crossroads of healthful  and delicious foods meet - is quite a delectable intersection that she is excited to nurture and explore with her clients.

Get in touch

Tel: 201-401-8224  |  Email: kryskurek@gmail.com