October is Dining Month on OnMilwaukee.com. All month, we're stuffed with restaurant reviews, special features, chef profiles and unique articles on everything food. Bon appetit!

When Dream Dance moved from the second floor of Potawatomi Bingo Casino to its more spacious digs on the first floor, management looked forward to the increased seating capacity and visibility as well as the larger kitchen and wine cellar.

Oh, and it also has considerably more space to display awards.

In addition to receiving the AAA Four-Diamond Award for the fifth consecutive year, and the Wine Spectator Best of Award of Excellence for the second straight year, Dream Dance received a 2008 Santé Award for wine hospitality.

This is the 11th year Santé magazine, a publication dedicated to food, wine and spirits management and written for restaurant professionals, has held its awards program. Dream Dance will be honored during an awards ceremony Nov. 4 in Napa, Calif.

"Things are going extraordinarily well," Dream Dance general manager Nathaniel Bauer said.

Since this is dining month at OnMilwaukee.com -- and wine is such an integral part of the dining experience -- we talked to Bauer, a certified sommelier and member of the Society of Wine Educators, about the role wine plays at Dream Dance.

With nearly 1,000 bottles in the collection, Dream Dance has the largest and most adventurous wine lists in the state. The selections range in price from $15 to $1,500 and are priced at the retail level.

Enjoy this Milwaukee Talks interview with Nathaniel Bauer.

OnMilwaukee.com: How did you get to your current position. What is your background?

Nathaniel Bauer: I started in the business a decade ago with Bartolotta's, back when it was still (called) Nona's, and I was a server and bartender. The manager at the time left, and there was nobody there to do the wine list.

I had been interested and jumped right in and was hooked instantly. It was just a 65- or 70-bottle list at the time. That pretty much paved the way for the last decade. I've gone to a couple different places, and it has all been focused on wine buying and maintaining lists and selling and doing the whole sommelier track.

I was with Bartolotta's a total of six years. Nona's changed over to Mr. B's. Then, I went to help reopen Grenadier's. I was bar manager and sommelier there. After a while, I thought I wanted to get out of restaurant (work) for a little bit. I did some graduate studies at UWM. That didn't work -- wine called me back. I went to work for Bacchus, back with Joe (Bartolotta) again for two years.

Then, I was going to get out of the restaurant business and open up a wine shop. I had that all squared away. It was going to be a fairly monstrous endeavor. But, the quality of life isn't so nice -- I was freshly married at the time. I liked spending time with my wife. I came to work at Dream Dance while I was planning that (store) and then ran the wine program at Dream Dance and took it from about 250 bottles to 900, where it is right now. I've been the GM for the last two years. It's definitely been all about wine.

OMC: I get the feeling that many diners don't realize what goes into building a wine list.

NB: There is a lot of science / art / psychology that goes into not only selecting the product, but arranging the list and making it as user-friendly as possible. The overarching principle is that people can enjoy themselves and have a really great time with a really great bottle, which is why we have a unique pricing structure.

OMC: I know you're responsible for the wine and the finances of the restaurant. Do you also have a hand in the food, or does that fall on Chef Jason Gorman?

NB: Anything food and back of the house is all chef Jason. He is the culinary genius. We do team up together, definitely, when we're doing wine dinners. I may offer a humble suggestion or two about how a component of a certain dish might work with a certain wine, but he's fantastic when it comes to instinctive and technical pairings.

The opposite is sometimes true, too, we'll do a cheese dinner or a white truffle dinner -- when it's cuisine focused, he'll create the menu and I'll go find the wines for it.

OMC: You and Jason have obviously built a successful enterprise. How would you describe your relationship?

NB: Jason and I are very complimentary opposites. He's the consummate creative artist. He's constantly coming up with new and creative and brilliant ideas. I'm definitely the operations / systems logician of the group. Ironically enough, even though it has been the front of the house that has kind of kept me in this business the last few years, I'm really enjoying the systems and the numbers aspect of things and the financial aspect of running the business.

We balance each other out really, really well in that regard. That helps. The most important thing is that with something as big as Dream Dance, it's a vision that supercedes myself and Jason.

When we get together, we want to figure out how can we make this the best restaurant in the city, the best restaurant in the state. We ask "What are the things it's going to take to get there?" You set that bar higher than either of you could possibly do on your own or even barely together and try to make the staff buy into it and be a part of it.

It's a lot of work. I give my staff a ton of credit over the last six months. I've beat them up really hard. To have every guest walk in the door and -- a bad night for us is maybe we miss a temperature on a steak from medium rare to medium. To have the confidence that we're able to deliver that kind of product after so much hard work and really all together trying to strive for that vision of excellence. That's what makes the most difference in working with a chef.

If you've got someone that you can really stand next to and go for it. Then it doesn't matter what the personality differences are. You work past them because you always have your eye on that goal. The end result is guest service and total guest satisfaction.

OMC: What aspect of your job do you enjoy the most?

NB: There is always excitement in discovering an amazing new product. (I) never cease to be a little kid in a candy store when I find that absolute gem from some obscure region at an absolutely amazing price and I get so excited I want everybody to try it.

I think that takes second place to the enjoyment from someone walking through the door and putting themselves in my hand, which happens multiple times every night.

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