At this early date, Trestle on Tenth has many of the trappings of an old-shoe neighborhood joint. The bar is a genial space, where you can enjoy frothy glasses of Corsendonk Brown Ale from ­Belgium or bottles of the excellent Swiss beer La Brasserie des Franches- Montagnes ($18). Then there are the hurried, somewhat thin desserts, which taste the way desserts often taste in smaller neighborhood restaurants without a high-priced pastry chef in the kitchen. You can get a standard ­strawberry-ice-cream sundae served in a tall, frosty glass, and a wheel of chocolate cake made vaguely interesting by a puddle of sweet cream sauce spiked with Trappist stout. The most novel dish of the bunch is a thick-crusted walnut pie from Switzerland called a Nusstorte, served with a little cloud of whipped cream. The most satisfying is the simple selection of sliced summer fruit (plums, raspberries, nectarines). They’re served in a blue porcelain bowl and folded with acacia honey, which, presumably, is just the way Kuettel likes it.

Trestle on Tenth
242 Tenth Ave., at 24th St.; 212-645-5659

Hours: Lunch, Tuesday through Friday, noon to 3 p.m. Dinner, Tuesday though Thursday, 5:30 to 10:30 p.m.; Friday and Saturday to 11 p.m.; Sunday to 10 p.m.
Prices: Appetizers, $8 to $13; entrées, $18 to $25.
Ideal Meal: pork crépinette, stuffed veal breast, gratinéed pizokle, Nusstorte.
Note: Kuettel’s wife is the wine director at Gramercy Tavern, which may be why the modestly priced, Eurocentric list is so well chosen.
Scratchpad: I don’t know if I’d travel miles for a taste of this hefty alpine cooking, but I’d be happy to have it in my neighborhood.

Related:

• Archive: “Restaurant Review”
• Articles by Adam Platt
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