The owner of Varenyk House, Stepan Rogulskyi, "lives with his wife, Natalya, and their two young daughters in Maspeth, the Queens neighborhood just north of Ridgewood. His first home, however, was the city of Truskavets, in western Ukraine; his two brothers, his parents and his paternal grandmother still live there, or nearby. Stepan, 33, has returned to Ukraine many times since he first came to the United States, in 2008, but his most recent visit, wife and daughters in tow, was during the summer of 2021.
"During the first weeks of the war, Stepan called Ukraine several times each day to check in on his extended family. Thankfully, he now feels able to call less frequently (though still more often than before the war). Maintaining reliable connections with his Eastern European suppliers, on the other hand, has become increasingly challenging, Stepan tells us: 'The situation changes every day.' " Read more on Culinary Backstreets.
