The Island Peach is just one of the many playful cocktails available at Le Belvedere, Newport's newest culinary hot spot. The restaurant’s tapas menu, like its cocktail glasses, features familiar foods served up in a way that looks unusual. Photos by Richard CreaserNEWPORT — With the opening of Le Belvedere some four weeks ago, the Northeast Kingdom gained not only a new restaurant but a completely new dining experience.  A division of the East Side Restaurant, Le Belvedere introduces some very old food traditions to the area, namely tapas and sushi.

Literally, tapas is Spanish for "little plates."  While the concept might be confused with appetizers, tapas is, rather, a smaller portion of a larger meal.  Typically, a table would select several tapas dishes and share them among the group.

"It's a different type of dining experience for this area," Chef Jason Marcoux said.  "We also want to showcase the fact that you don't need a special occasion to come enjoy a meal here."

While popular in Spain, tapas are growing in popularity in the U.S. as well, Le Belvedere Manager Veronica Rancourt said.  Tapas is a social eating experience, and a social experience is part of what Le Belvedere brings to the area.  That social dining experience was also the inspiration behind the restaurant's long list of in-house developed cocktails.

"When I think of tapas I think of sharing food and martinis and talking with our friends," Ms. Rancourt said.  "I wanted to put together a drink Chef Jason Marcoux of Le Belvedere serves this rotolo with a distinctive flavor derived from a secret house recipe for smoked tomato. "We tried this recipe with a lot of different sauces but it never quite tasted the way I wanted it to," Chef Marcoux said. "We have a smoker that I use for our smoked Arctic char bruschetta and I decided to try some tomatoes in there. You have to be careful not to use too many smoked tomatoes or else you lose the balance of flavors."menu that reflects our menu and our personality.  We spent quite a bit of time trying and testing different recipes until we found just the right ones."

If the menu and cocktails are any indication, that personality is sophisticated, playful, piquant and fresh.  The house cocktails feature vodka as the main liquor base but incorporate blueberries, milk, fruit, and maple syrup among the many and varied flavor combinations.

Maple syrup is only one local ingredient Chef Marcoux works into his recipes.  People are decidedly interested in tasting local produce, he said.

"It's unbelievable how many things I can use," Chef Marcoux said.  "Our menu will try to incorporate whatever is freshest.  We are actually growing our own little herb garden in the kitchen to make sure we have the freshest flavors available."

In addition to local foods, the restaurant also features an extensive selection of Vermont and regional beers on tap.  The extensive wine list features a blend of domestic and imported wines but also pays homage to local vintners.  Boyden Valley Winery has a red and white wine on the menu.

"People are traveling more and experiencing more things," Ms. Rancourt said.  "Food is one of the ways we experience a place and that's true whether you are visiting the area skiing at Jay Peak, or you just want to try something different here in town."

Beyond an innovative tapas and bar menu, Le Belvedere is also carving out a special niche by offering a weekly sushi night.  For the last three weeks, the restaurant has offered a special, by reservation only, sushi dining experience on Thursday evenings.

The spring roll is just one of the many items offered up on Le Belvedere's tapas menu. Unlike a traditional appetizer, generally designed to be eaten by one or two people, a tapas serving is meant to be shared. "The colors of the fresh vegetables in the spring rolls are just so vibrant you don't really need a garnish to make them pop," Chef Jason Marcoux explained. "I'm a firm believer in edible garnishes. If it can't be eaten and doesn't add to the dish, it doesn't go on the plate.""It was a bit of a risk but both Jason and I love sushi, and right now you have to travel to Burlington or even further if you want to have sushi," Ms. Rancourt said.  "We weren't sure how much interest there was locally, so we decided to start small and offer it one day a week."

Hedging their bets in this way was probably a smart way to go.  Not only does it give the restaurant an opportunity to feel out the local appetite, it also limits the investment in man-hours and fresh produce necessary to make it work.

"I spend a lot of time here on Thursday morning making sure we serve only the freshest fish," Chef Marcoux said.  "Making sure our purveyors could get us what we need when we need it was a challenge.  It's quite a bit different working up here versus in Boston but I got a guy in Boston looking out for me."

It would probably be appropriate at this time to clarify what precisely Le Belvedere offers on its sushi menu.  Strictly speaking sushi is sticky rice.  The addition of other ingredients such as uncooked fish, vegetables, or that seaweed wrap we often associate with it, actually impart different names to the food.  To the uninitiated, navigating the sushi menu can be a challenge akin to deciphering a menu written in a foreign language.  If you don't know, just ask.

The sushi night menu is divided into different categories from maki rolls to sashimi.  Le Belvedere also offers up sushi for two or sushi for four, allowing Chef Marcoux and his team to serve up a sampling of the different styles and flavors.

"The really great thing about sushi is the fresh flavors and the colors," Chef Marcoux said.  "A well-made sushi roll doesn't need a garnish.  It is its own garnish."

That is especially true of the sashimi.  Sashimi is thinly sliced strips of fish served over balls of sushi rice.  The deep, arterial red of the tuna contrasts against the muted gold and white of yellowfin tuna and the striped orange and white of salmon.

"Sushi is about letting the flavors come through," Chef Marcoux said.  "You aren't hiding flavors or mixing them up to the point where you can't tell one thing from the other.  A little bit of soy sauce and a little bit of wasabi and wow, you've got great flavors."

Chef Marcoux's palate, combined with his wealth of experience, made him a perfect fit for Le Belvedere, Ms. Rancourt said.  Being a local boy didn't hurt either.

His culinary adventures have taken him all around the country and back again.  His introduction to the culinary arts started in the now A handful of simple ingredients, artfully displayed, is the hallmark of the sushi platter for two at Le Belvedere in Newport. Crab and avocado cohabitate to the left while delicate bits of sushi rice and avocado flank a selection of sashimi. Red tuna lies on either side of offerings of yellowfin tuna and salmon belly. "I purposefully cut from the belly to get some of that marbling of fat," Chef Jason Marcoux said. "The flavor of that cut is unbelievable."defunct Long Branch Steakhouse in Newport.  From there he entered the New England Culinary Institute at the tender age of 16, at the time being the youngest ever applicant accepted into the school.

He interned at Breakers in West Palm Beach, Florida, and the Sun Valley Resort in Idaho where he honed his skills as a pastry chef.  His journey continued through stops at Jay Peak resort and Sunday River in Maine before a stop at the Seven Glaciers Restaurant at the Alyeska Resort in Alaska where he served as chef de cuisine.  Somewhere in between he found the time to continue his culinary studies through nutritional cuisine courses at the Culinary Institute of America.

"I've always wanted to come back and open my own place someday," Chef Marcoux said.  "Put into practice some of what I learned and work in some ideas of my own."

"That's why we wanted him here," Ms. Rancourt said.  "He has the drive and ambition to make this work and to do what needs to be done to make sure it does.  He is dedicated to the idea and the concept behind this restaurant."

The concept is tied directly to the name of the restaurant, Ms. Rancourt said.  Le Belvedere is a French word for a scenic vista, she explained, not unlike the vista that greets diners out the north-facing windows.

"My challenge is to make food that lives up to that view," Chef Marcoux said.  "And that is quite a challenge.  Newport has changed a lot over the last ten years and this restaurant is our contribution to that effort."