Alpine Chic

Much ado is being made of the latest microtrend in restaurants to sweep Cafe Drake's hometown – Alpine ski chic. One of the earliest adopters was Gstaad (37 W. 26th St), the Chelsea watering hole currently suffering a declasse status due only to being the First Kid on the Swiss Block. Slightly newer and therefore still relevant in the eyes of ADD-addled New York is Williamsburg's St. Helen Cafe (150 Wythe Ave. between North Seventh and North Eighth Sts.) A lovelier brunch spot is, granted, hard to imagine, and we frequently crawl the short distance to their hangover-sympathetic dining room (soothing black lacquered walls, potent coffee and delicious breakfast sandwiches), followed by a visit to their clothing/housewares/tattoo parlor store down the block. The same Pacific Northwest nightmare aesthetic of the cafe reigns in the retail shop Saved (82 Berry St.), and truthfully, no one does it better (or more expensively) than this unique design/culinary collective.

A gentler version of apres-slopes dining in Brooklyn has now arrived in the most unlikely of locales – the industrial outer reaches of Bushwick. Amidst streets seemingly designed by the production crew from Escape to New York, Northeast Kingdom (18 Wyckoff Ave, Brooklyn, (718) 386-3864) is a spot of welcoming diffused light, as consoling to the urban spirit as a St. Bernard bearing brandy in a barrel. The gently-lit interior evokes a rustic lodge from the restaurant's namesake (and owner's childhood home), the upper stretch of Vermont bordering Quebec, down (or up) to the wood-planked ceilings.

At least for the moment, Northeast Kingdom offers an abbreviated menu – a scant four starters and three entrees are the bulk on offer here, but a handful of specials appear nightly on a chalkboard in the front. Our first courses were disappointing; an order of crostini with liver pate ($4.50) was chalking and runny, and the steamed artichoke ($6) was completely without distinction (poorly trimmed outer leaves, small heart, measly portion of drawn butter). Susan McKeever and I liked the entrees better, with a dinner salad of watercress, dried sausage, egg and avocado ($9) nicely dressed and composed, and a well-seasoned chicken pot pie ($12); juicy morsels of chicken and creamy potatoes buried beneath a salty, thick crust was a winner, if perhaps not terribly seasonal (then again, this is supposed to be the Canadian border, right). Fittingly perhaps, the meal ended with the best dish of the evening, a wide slice of rich chocolate tart ($6). Also worth mentioning is the brave choice of locale by the restauranteurs, the petite but smart wine list (moderately priced) and perfectly shaken Manhattans in fishbowl cocktail glasses ($8).