So Europeans can be forgiven for laughing out loud at the idea that Belgium has become chic–not at home, but in America. Belgian restaurants are springing up on the East and West coasts, Belgian beer is being chugged in three-star restaurants and Belgian designers Martin Margiela, Ann Demeulemeester and Dries Van Noten have attracted cult followings among the fashion conscious. More Americans are visiting Belgium, too. While tourism to Europe was up an average of 5 percent annually between 1993 and 1997, it was up 6.3 percent to Belgium. This is possible in part because Americans don’t have Europe’s aversion to Belgium; to many of them, in fact, it’s Europe lite. They don’t know it’s supposed to be boring. They’re just grateful that the Belgians are nice to them. ““It’s France without the French,’’ says producer Burt Wolf, who recently completed a public-television program on Belgium. ““They’re more welcoming–everyone has occupied them, so I guess they’ve learned to make friends.''

Belgians also have a terrific ambassador–beer. In the mid-1980s, as Americans began to care more about the quality of what they ate and drank, American microbrews became popular. Real aficionados took their passion a step further, seeking out beer shrines, like the Belgian Trappist monasteries where monks take a vow of silence. An importing community sprang up, and the beers began showing up in specialty pubs.

More recently, Belgian brews have moved beyond the pub. They are served with the same care and attention as wine in top-tier restaurants like New York’s Oceana and Philadelphia’s Le Bec Fin. While Belgian beers make up a very small portion of the total import market, growth figures are strong. One of America’s leading importers of Belgian beers, Vanberg & DeWulf, says its sales doubled between 1997 and 1998. Last year the company partnered with Belgian beer makers to build a brewery in Cooperstown, N.Y., once a center for hops growing in the U.S. Capitalizing on traffic from the nearby Baseball Hall of Fame, the brewery has brought in 15,000 visitors since last May. Belgian beer Web sites abound, and fans dissect their favorite drinking experiences in virtual pubs.

Of course, the perfect accompaniment to Belgian beer is Belgian cuisine, which is sort of like French comfort food. Over the past two years, Belgian frites stands have opened in Los Angeles and New York, serving crispy fries with mayonnaise. Now, sit-down restaurants are introducing Americans to the Belgian national dish–mussels and frites. In the past two years in New York alone at least six new Belgian restaurants have opened, serving food of French quality and German quantity. At Waterloo, one of the city’s hippest hangouts, models nibble mussels cooked in beer, as well as haute Belgian dishes like roasted monkfish with lobster coral sauce. ““Belgians have been a little neglected in the past,’’ says French manager Stephane Gerbier, with a smirk. ““But New Yorkers were hungry for something new.’’ Gerbier will have competition from Belgo, a European chain that opened its first restaurant in New York two weeks ago. French Canadian cofounder Denis Blais says he got the idea to do a Belgian restaurant when he and his partner tried to celebrate Belgium’s entry into the semifinals of the 1986 World Cup. ““We were in London looking for Belgian food, and all we found was a warm pint of Stella and some dodgy chocolates.’’ Cultural irony has been a crucial part of Belgo’s success. Red-faced Belgians with sausage necklaces stare out from the menus. Servers wear monk’s robes. And the New York restaurant has that Wallpaper-ish sort of European modernist design (read: airplane hangars). ““Which is cool,’’ says Blais, ““because Belgium is sort of transient. You either drive through it or fly into it.''

Belgian-American writer Luc Sante remembers avoiding it himself. ““When I was a student traveling in Europe in the 1970s, you couldn’t use your Eurorail pass to travel inside the country where you bought it. So, everyone bought it in Belgium.’’ These days, Sante has come to terms with his heritage. He recently published ““The Factory of Facts’’ (Pantheon), a book that traces his roots. And he goes to New York’s Belgian restaurants for a taste of home. ““I’m happy to be Belgian. It’s one of the few nations in Europe without an overweening ego. You can’t be arrogant about being Belgian.’’ Good thing, because no other European would stand for it.