SKANEATELES - As the new general manager of Rosalie's Cucina, Marc Albino still finds time to apply his creativity in the culinary arts.

Today Albino is competing on “CNY's Star Chef Showdown,” an NBC TV program in which teams of three chefs from area restaurants face off to create the best dish. Each team is given a group of ingredients and one hour in which to craft cuisine from it in a kitchen completely new to them. Albino is confident he and his fellow chefs will find a meal to make from their given ingredients, but the prospect of preparing it in a foreign setting is daunting.

“We'll be unfamiliar with what there is to use, and we'll have to find everything in the course of an hour,” he said. “We don't know what to expect.”

Although he's never before faced a culinary challenge of that nature, Albino is accustomed to being creative in the kitchen. The general manager of Rosalie's often makes suggestions for new meals to the restaurant's sous chefs when he isn't working in the kitchen himself as the executive chef.

“I'm always trying to come up with a new dish, always researching and developing,” Albino said.

Rosalie's owner Gary Robinson has noticed that Albino's creations - like almost everything that comes from his kitchen - are met with enthusiasm from the regular eaters at the restaurant.

“When I host, 95 percent of the people who leave comment on how great the food is and how it's better than ever, better than anything they've had in New York City,” Robinson said. “And they ask me to thank the chef.”

Culinary magazines have spotlighted several of Albino's creations, including a lobster pot pie dish.

Last spring, Albino was also awarded a “Best Presentation” distinction at the New York Beef Industry Council's conference for veal distributors in Canandaigua.

“The competition was geared on veal, we had to come up with new ways to utilize it to inspire the market,” he said.

Albino and the Rosalie's kitchen staff devised a four-part dish. It consisted of saltimbocca, a popular European meal that Albino slightly revised to include seared veal medallions with aged provolone, proscuitto ham, fresh sage, shallots and a sauce made from chicken stock and butter.

The meal also includes a veal stuffed with an egg white and veal puree, spinach and proscuitto ham. The third portion was a ravioli containing pureed veal and provolone and served with crispy shallots and sage buttermilk. A sweetbread salad with sage, provolone, proscuitto and fried veal sweetbreads completed the dish.

Albino's recipe was refined with the help of regular customers at Rosalie's and the restaurant's staff. After they raved about the dish, he made a few tweaks to it - such as the addition of more sauce - based on their feedback.

At the conference, Albino and his assistants had two and a half hours to complete the dish for both judges and a display. The meal was also sampled by more than 100 people, including veal buyers from Casa Imports and Sisco International.

Albino has been honing his creative instincts as a chef since his uncle brought him into Auburn's Sunset Restaurant when he was 15. He started his restaurant career there as a dishwasher and eventually a prep, late night and banquet cook.

“I was really big into presentations, ice carvings and sugar sculptures,” he said.

One of his early mentors, Steve Kulha, is now working alongside Albino at Rosalie's.

“He's got a lot of creativity, him and the sous chefs come up with some off-the-wall stuff,” Kulha said.

The Owasco Country Club was the setting for Albino's first chef position, and he subsequently went to the Pennsylvania Culinary Institute in Pittsburgh. He has since worked in the kitchens of a four-star Marriott in Lexington, Ken. and an Asian-fusion fish house in Birmingham, Ala. Albino served as a partner and chef at the latter restaurant, which also won a governor's award for culinary excellence.

He returned to central New York to raise his daughter and work as executive chef at Phoebe's in Syracuse for a short time before coming to Rosalie's in 2003. After working his way to the executive chef position, Albino became general manager in September.

“He is all the characteristics you want in a chef - very professional, very talented, he has a good way with people and he's a very hard worker,” Robinson said.

Although Albino would eventually like to own his own restaurant, he is in no hurry to leave his current position and the creativity it permits him.

“The chef team I work with is the best I've ever worked with in my career,” he said.

If you watch

What: “CNY's Star Chef”

When: 11:30 a.m. Sunday, Nov. 25

Channel: NBC