Straight from the Old Country: Nundini Chef’s Table Italian Kitchen and Wine Bar

As you enter Nundini Chef’s Table Italian Kitchen and Wine Bar on North Shepherd, just above the Katy Freeway, you are greeted by a wall of imported Italian pastas with wonderfully politically incorrect names like strozzapreti (priest stranglers) and anelli d’Africa (African rings, a pasta shape that Americans know from eating SpaghettiOs, but used traditionally in Italy to make baked pasta pies, like the Sicilian timballo di anelli alla palermitana). PHOTOS BY ALLISON MCPHAIL