After several months of trying, I finally made it by my friend David White’s  new (less than a year old) restaurant and wine bar Nua.

First of all, chef Anna Bautista’s menu was really excellent: we dined happily on such things as grilled octopus and chickpea salad, piquillo peppers stuffed with brandade and sardines with an eggplant caponata.

But what I’ve always admired about David White is his palate and his enthusiasm for the often overlooked wines of the world. He has a nose for well-balanced, interesting and—most important—well-priced wines. His list is full of them.



We started out with the Palmina Pinot Grigio, a wine from Santa Barbara County that’s better than 90% of the Pinot Grigio made in Italy. Our second wine was not David’s, but rather a 1970 BV Georges de Latour brought to SF from my aunt and her boyfriend from Seattle. This wine was drinking amazingly well—a gem from the dawn of modern Napa Valley.

Anyway, David closed us out with two beautiful dessert wines that were great examples of what he does so well—rare, off-the-beaten path and delicious like the Pacherenc de Vic Bihl, a sweet wine from Madiran in the south of France and a Muscat de Rivesaltes from not too far away in the Cotes de Roussillon.

Go to Nua. Its arrival is not only good for North Beach, but also for San Francisco.