French Fries? Non! Frites? Oui! (int'l edition)

Dressed in an Armani suit, Patrick Georges, a Brussels brain surgeon, drives all the way across the city to eat at the famed Maison Antoine. For gastronomes, little Belgium produces some of the best haute cuisine in the world.

But Maison Antoine is no Michelin-starred restaurant. It doesn't even have tables. No, it's a friterie, a stand specializing in fried potatoes--French fries to outsiders. Although Maison Antoine serves sausages and hamburgers, most customers come strictly for frites (pronounced ''freets''), ordering a $1.75 pile served in a paper cone and topped with a dollop of mayonnaise. ''This is the food of my childhood,'' says Georges, savoring his frites the traditional way--standing on the sidewalk, eating with his fingers. ''It warms your stomach.''

What cafes are to France and pubs to England, friteries are to Belgium. Don't dare say ''French'' fries here. A love for potatoes represents one of the few unifying factors left in this country straddling Northern and Southern Europe and embracing three official languages. With a population of only 10 million, Belgium boasts an astounding 7,000 potato stands.

The traditional friterie is not only helping Belgium repel the invasion of American-style fast food but is also exporting its specialty to the U.S. Three shops modeled after Belgian stands have been launched in the past two years in New York City. Belgian-born entrepreneur Skel Islamaj spent $500,000 on a fancy shop in Manhattan's theater district. It opened last November and has been so successful that Islamaj hopes to franchise his B. Frites store concept nationwide. ''A good frite has been missing from the American culinary repertoire,'' Islamaj insists.

McDonald's, of course, would disagree. But even it can't question the intensity of the Belgian love affair with potatoes. Spanish conquistadores in the 16th century discovered Indians cultivating potatoes in Peru and brought them back to Europe. Farmers began growing them in Belgium in 1583 and found that the country's fertile flat land was well-suited to the crop. ''Belgium is right in the middle of the world's largest potato field, which runs from northern France into Holland,'' says Eric Desmerat, director of the European Association of Potato Processing Industries. The small country the size of New Jersey produces almost 1 billion tons of potatoes a year, and each Belgian devours about 100 kilos annually--twice the amount consumed by the average American.

Belgians even claim they invented the frite. Traditionally, Belgians living near rivers fried the fish they caught. But during one winter in the 19th century, ice made fishing in the Meuse River impossible. So French-speaking Belgians cut up potatoes in the shape of small fish to replace their usual meal.

In 1861, a Brussels entrepreneur named Frits opened a stand selling the fried potatoes in Brussels and gave the name to the invention. Soon afterward, horse-drawn potato stands proliferated. ''The friterie was important socially because it appealed to both rich and poor,'' says Dirk De Prins, author of a history of Belgian cuisine. ''The poor could afford them, and the rich loved them because they were new.'' Even King Leopold II, the most outsized figure in Belgian history and conqueror of the Congo, ate frites when he visited fairgrounds and ordered them prepared in the Royal Palace.

Belgians also discovered the secrets of producing crispy, golden fries. They rely on a local variety, the Bintje, which has a soft, sweet interior. Potatoes should be hand-cut daily in thicker chunks than at McDonald's--although many of today's friteries use labor-saving machines. The potato strips are fried in beef fat--not once but twice, to give them the crunchiest exterior. ''French cookbooks don't even mention such a second cooking,'' says Pierre Wynants, chef and owner of Belgium's most famous restaurant, Comme Chez Soi. Over the years, Belgians developed an entire cuisine around frites, teaming them with mussels from the nearby North Sea, for instance, in one of Belgium's most famous dishes.

Why, then, do Americans say ''French fries?'' During World War I, foreign soldiers fighting in Belgium discovered friteries. Since the language used was French, the name stuck. ''It's quite unfortunate,'' Wynants says. ''The proper name should be 'Belgian fries.'''

Maison Antoine's founder, Antoine Desmet, opened for business in 1948 in the back of an abandoned military staff van. He served no meat and only two sauces, mustard and mayonnaise. He heated his fryer with coal. ''My grandfather used to come home with his hands all dark from firing the burner,'' recalls Christine Desmet, who now runs the institution.

These days, Maison Antoine is automated. An electric potato cleaner and a potato cutter whir in one corner of the kitchen. The potatoes are fried in sleek electric fryers. Maison Antoine offers a wide selection of sausages and brochettes. ''We recently added American-style kippets,'' a Chicken McNuggets takeoff, ''because we saw that people liked them in fast-food shops,'' Desmet says. A choice of a dozen sauces, from tartar to hot curry to malt vinegar, accompanies the container of Maison Antoine fries. There's even Diet Coke.

BOTTOM LINE. A good friterie's economics are simple--and profitable. Potatoes cost about 50 cents a kilogram and sell fried for more than $3. Maison Antoine sells about $3,500 worth a day. ''I make a comfortable living,'' says Desmet, who works just two or three days a week, leaving co-owners and cousins to run the stand.

But friteries face pressures on their bottom line. Not long ago, the Belgian government threatened to force them to issue restaurant receipts, adding a 21% tax. That caused an uproar, and the government backed down. But the Brussels city council banned friteries on wheels last year, as eyesores. That law forced a historic stand in Place St. Catherine, the old fish market, to close. ''The friteries should be left alone; they are part of the culture,'' says Victoria Madge, a British resident working at the European Commission, as she waits in the long line at Maison Antoine. That eatery is safe; it built a permanent stand with granite counters in 1994, because ''people don't want to eat out of the back of a van anymore,'' Desmet says. In fact, the Maison Antoine van is long gone.

It's this chic friterie experience that's crossing the Atlantic. Bronx native Suzanne Levinson quit her job with a travel agency in 1997 to set up the first New York friterie--Pommes Frites--because she couldn't find a good frite at home, she says. Bintjes aren't readily available, so she uses American-grown Yukon Gold and Russet potatoes, frying them in vegetable oil instead of beef fat. Her first friterie, in Greenwich Village, was so successful that Levinson has opened a second one, in the midtown theater district.

B. Frites, which sells between 300 and 400 kg of potatoes a day at its store on Broadway and 50th Street, hopes to franchise 300 to 500 friteries in the U.S. within five years. A Colorado farmer contracted with Islamaj to grow genuine Bintjes. With its ultra-chic design, the shop resembles an upscale gourmet outlet, and it charges $3.75 for a paper cone of frites that comes with a built-in sauce container. That's much higher than the price in Belgium, ''but my rent is twice Belgian rents,'' explains Islamaj.

Islamaj is considering tables for B. Frites, something Christine Desmet would never do at Maison Antoine. ''Frites are meant to be eaten standing up,'' she sniffs. But when she hears of Islamaj's plans for a chain of friteries in America, she smacks her lips. ''That smells great,'' she says. ''My father and I often have dreamed of opening a friterie in the States.'' And why not? If McDonald's can sell French fries to Europeans, surely Maison Antoine can sell the real thing to Americans.

BY WILLIAM ECHIKSON

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MAP: Belgium