The Peninsula features a whimsical new speakeasy inspired by tarot cards. Here are four drinks to try

The Peninsula is now home to a moody new speakeasy bar serving creative cocktails on a menu inspired by tarot cards.

Wunderbar is a reservations-only location located in the basement of the Wursthall restaurant in downtown San Mateo at 310 Baldwin Ave. Customers order from tarot cards; on one side, a classic cocktail, like an old fashioned or a martini, and on the other, the riffs of bar manager Kiernan Moran. Take, for example, his dirty martini, made with dashi.

Visitors enter the underground bar through a separate entrance from the Wursthall. The space has 40 seats, including a semi-private corner with purple velvet chairs, and is decorated like a “whimsical underground lair”, said general manager Xian Choy. Think dark wood backlit bookshelves, dark red leather chairs and animal statues inspired by Grimm’s fairy tales. Framed tarot cards hang on the walls.

Moran, a San Mateo native, brings his bar experience from Gibson of San Francisco and Sixtos Cantina of San Mateo to Wunderbar. He likes to play with savory ingredients, like guajillo peppers or sage, which are more likely to show up in a restaurant dish than in a cocktail. He and Choy spent as much time creating their ideal version of traditional cocktails as they did their own interpretations, including blind whiskeys for the Manhattan for an entire week.

Bar manager Kiernan Moran makes drinks at Wunderbar in downtown San Mateo.

Courtesy of Stephanie Amberg

For wine, Wunderbar focuses on bottles made with minimal intervention, from organic production to the most extreme zero zero, which means nothing is added. There are local canned beers, too — plus Miller High Life, “because sometimes you just need some obscene carbonic palate refreshment,” Choy said. There is no food, but a custom machine will produce buttered popcorn as a snack.

Wunderbar took years to manufacture; the owners’ goal was to bring a thoughtful cocktail bar to the peninsula. The planned opening in 2020 was delayed by more than a year due to the pandemic. The bar is currently opening softly and will fully open on December 1st.

Here’s a deep dive into four cocktails served at Wunderbar.

Sidewinder Fang: This tiki drink originated at the long-closed San Mateo Bar, the Lanai, which was reportedly frequented by members of the Rat Pack and visiting football teams playing the San Francisco 49ers. Moran offers a classic version with two kinds of rum, passion fruit and fresh lime and orange juice. His version includes Amontillado sherry with walnuts, umeboshi (Japanese pickled plum) and orgeat, a sweet almond syrup.

Wunderbar's Sidewinder's Fang cocktail, a tropical drink originally created by a now closed San Mateo bar. — Wunderbar’s Sidewinder’s Fang cocktail, a tropical drink originally created by a now closed San Mateo bar.

Courtesy of Stephanie Amberg/

Mirror Mirror: Moran’s take on the Old Fashioned gets more complex from two different types of amaro – one bitter and one sweet, with hints of molasses – and cocoa bitters. He is obsessed with amaro, and Italian liqeuer appears throughout the menu.

Siren song: For a next-level dirty martini, try this drink. Instead of olive brine, they use dashi made from scratch using the recipe from cookbook author and Wursthall opening partner Kenji Lopez-Alt. The rich kombu broth is blended with sake, gin and makrut lime. Aromatic citrus adds “lemony, Fruit Loop-y” notes, Moran said.

A wise woman: With his riff on a French 75, Moran wanted to create a drink that challenged vodka’s reputation as a flat, boring spirit. He adds the amaro from Apéritifs Lo-Fi, infused with ginger, anise and grapefruit, as well as blackberry and sage.