Wunder Bar Is Ideal Spot to Nosh and Sample Wines

After days of staring at the television screen, unable to look away from the terrible news unfolding, I finally ventured out last week, with friends. We wanted something casual, somewhere familiar, and so we ended up going to Rockenwagner to try the new Wunder Bar wine and snack lounge.

Gone is the massive stammtisch , or communal, table that Venice artist Laddie John Dill designed for the restaurant; it’s found a home in a museum. In its stead, chef-owner Hans Rockenwagner has installed a large, round table and a handful of two-tops along a banquette. Outside a few more tables are enclosed by a white picket fence topped with window boxes of geraniums.

The new Wunder Bar has its own small menu, usually a handful of dishes chalked on a big blackboard. You can also order anything from the full dinner menu. Once we sat down, one of us made a foray into the bar to order, while the rest deliberated over the wine. It turns out wine-buyer Patti Rockenwagner (Hans’ wife and partner) is just back from a trip to Austria and Germany and has added some fascinating wines to the wine list, including a marvelous bone-dry 1999 Riesling from Austrian winemaker F.X. Pichler’s Loibenberg vineyard in the Wachau region. Very few restaurants have these wines, so this is a wonderful opportunity to taste them.

Among the more than 30 wines by the glass ($5 to $16) are a crisp Grner Veltliner from the Wachau and a trocken , or dry, Sptlese Riesling from J.L. Wolf from the Pfalz region of Germany. The bar also serves flights of wines. A skilled woodworker, Rockenwagner built the clever wooden serving trays himself. A flight ($10.50) consists of 2-ounce pours of any three wines (Champagne and dessert wines excepted) offered by the glass. If someone else at the table orders a different three, that’s when things get interesting.

What’s to eat--or, rather, nosh? The menu changes a little every day, but you can expect a mini pretzel burger with a seemingly bottomless brown paper bag of shoestring fries or a mini weisswurst with Bavarian mustard on a pretzel roll. Pretzel dough makes a splendid poppyseed bun. Who would have thought? All in all, this pretzel burger is one of the best burgers around. Rockenwagner gets some serious Black Forest ham, so don’t miss this gently smoky ham with cornichons and house-pickled pearl onions. There’s also an excellent cured sausage and salami plate, a cheese plate, and, for your white wine, a dainty lobster grilled cheese sandwich.

Dessert could be a Sauternes from Chateau Suduiraut, a Tokaji from Hungary, or from Austria, Aloise Kracher’s Beerenauslese Cuvee. Or dessert could be baked-to-order cookies. Or, more likely, both.

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Wunder Bar at Rockenwagner, 2435 Main St., Santa Monica, (310) 399-6504. Open every night from 5:30 p.m.; no reservations. Prices. Valet parking.