After blogging about his efforts with the human cheese, customers started demanding a sample, he said.

"The phone was ringing off the hook," the chef said. "So I prepared a little canapé of breast-milk cheese with figs and Hungarian pepper."

The response has been generally positive from those who've tried the cheese, although many customers are too squeamish to attempt it.

"I think a lot of the criticism has to do with the combination of sex and cheese, but . . . the breast is there to make food," said Lori Mason, the chef's wife.

Since the restaurant began offering customers a taste, Mason has been inundated with creepy queries, she said.

"Some people who clearly have issues have . . . e-mailed me saying, 'I wasn't breast-fed as a child, so can I taste your breast milk?' " she said.

Mason politely declines the offer.

"I'm not here to walk people through their psychological problems," she said.

That said, Mason is now prodding her husband to make gelato.

After inquiries from The Post, health bigs said yesterday that even though department codes do not explicitly forbid the practice, they have advised Angerer to refrain from sharing his wife's milk with the world.

"The restaurant knows that cheese made from breast milk is not for public consumption, whether sold or given away," a spokeswoman for the city Department of Health said.

jeremy.olshan@nypost.com