September 24, 2004

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Palo Alto Online

A rags-to-riches story

by Andrea Chang

As a young girl from a poor farming family in the French Pyrenees, Annie Nunan received a single gift every Christmas: An orange, a sliver of chocolate or a banana. She savored every bite.

"The poverty -- it just marks you," she said. "You never forget it. But you know what? The rest of your life, you appreciate every little thing that comes your way. You never lose sight of that."

In the time since Nunan savored every last morsel of her Christmas gift, she's grown to become an accomplished chef and restaurant owner, creating extravagant French and Italian dishes from the simple pleasures of her youth.

For the past 12 years Nunan, 56, has served as both chef and server in her Bryant-Street restaurant -- affectionately known to loyal customers as "Annie's," but officially called Nouveau Trattoria. Her traditional cooking has drawn the refined palates of such luminaries as Joe Montana and Hilary and Bill Clinton, who dined at the restaurant when their daughter, Chelsea, attended Stanford.

Nunan, who plans to formally change her restaurant's name to "Chez Annie" in early October, credits the American dream for her success.

"My story is a lot like Arnold Schwarzenegger's," she said. "All of us immigrants can relate to that because it is the land of opportunity. Over there you live off the farm, the misery is constant."

After immigrating to America with her family at the age of 10, Nunan -- in a true rags-to-riches story -- worked her way through the restaurant business. She began in a small West Portal coffee shop her family ran and later moved on to a restaurant on Geary Street.

"When you grow up in a restaurant business you have to work all the time," she said. "So we could never go to games; we could never participate in any school functions because working was a way of life -- it was survival. My mother always said that the only reason her restaurants were successful was because we worked together as a family."

The family tradition continued for two more decades, with Nunan, her mom and brothers (her parents divorced in 1963) working alongside each other at restaurants in San Francisco and the Peninsula. Nunan started as a hostess but quickly became a cook and a server before purchasing her first restaurant, La Croisette, in North Beach at the age of 27.

She left the restaurant business two years later, however, to spend more time with her infant son, Jimmy.

"I wanted to be home with him," Nunan said. "You can do many things in life, but you don't get a second chance at raising your children. And I too had a lot of growing to do. I needed to know a lot about life because all I knew was restaurant life."

Nunan returned to the restaurant business in 1986 and worked at Palo Alto's Osteria as a hostess. She left six years later to purchase Trattoria Romana from a longtime friend after reading about the opportunity in a newspaper ad and -- to reflect her French roots -- renamed the restaurant Nouveau Trattoria.

Nunan now runs a cozy, 180-occupancy restaurant decorated with fresh flowers, jazz paintings and an impressive wine rack that covers an entire wall. Nouveau Trattoria bears a strong likeness to the interior of a well-furnished house, with flowery red drapery, lace curtains, worn-in brown carpeting, bookshelves and even a dresser with a lamp and stack of papers.

Her menu is a unique blend of two types of cuisine: French and Italian. She kept many of the dishes from the restaurant's original Italian menu, such as the popular tortellini con panna -- a pasta dish with light cream, parmesan and peas -- and petto di pollo, breast of chicken with artichokes, onions, mushrooms and bacon.

She did add many traditional French dishes to the menu, such as escargots de Bourgogne; and a customer favorite, the hard-to-find ris de veau -- calf glands sautéed with cream, mushrooms and brandy.

On Friday and Saturday nights, the restaurant stays open until midnight for dessert and also features live jazz music.

Nouveau Trattoria also boasts a Basque family- style, four-course dinner option where customers can choose one of her famous soups and an entrée as well as a sampling of cheese, dessert and coffee.

Nunan is also paying tribute to the late French chef, Julia Child, through December by serving such trademark dishes as chicken bouillabaisse with rouille and roast duck a l'orange.

"She has a style of cooking that connects me right to childhood and family-style dining," said Gregorio Piccinini, owner of Osteria, a nearby Italian restaurant.

Piccinini, who has known Nunan for 19 years, said there has never been any competition with his neighbor despite owning a restaurant with similar fare. In the past, the two have even borrowed ingredients, such as vegetables and bread, from each other.

"If she needs champagne or spices -- whatever it is -- she just needs to call," Piccinini said. "I'll go over and drop it off. It's great to have a friend like that in the neighborhood. We don't keep track on a piece of paper."

Describing herself as "very fussy" about her cooking, Nunan -- who often puts in 15-hour work days -- personally picks all of her produce fresh from the market each morning. She manages a small staff of only four others, and on some nights works double-duty as both a chef and server. But for Nunan, the demanding schedule is worth it.

"I love what I do," she said. "I would never in my life get to meet the people I've met. I don't have to travel, the world comes to me."

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