Meteora

Mélisse

· Los Angeles · French tasting menu

The Wild Card

Mélisse is a destination for Champagne completists willing to pay fine dining prices for the privilege of choosing between four Philipponnat vintages or three Krug editions in a single sitting. But if you're hoping for a wine list that matches the ambition of a French tasting menu — with depth across regions and styles — the narrowness here will leave you wanting. Come for the bubbles, manage your expectations for everything else.

Bar Chelou

· Los Angeles · New American Wine Bar

The Wild Card

Bar Chelou is the rare LA wine bar that actually commits to a point of view — weird grapes, honest prices, producers you'll Google mid-dinner. The BTG range alone makes it worth a stop, and the bottle list rewards the curious without punishing the budget. If you like knowing exactly what you're getting, go somewhere else. If you like being pleasantly confused, pull up a stool.

Kismet

Los Feliz · Los Angeles · New American and Middle Eastern

The Wild Card

Kismet earns its Wild Card badge because it's doing something genuinely interesting with its wine program inside a casual Los Feliz storefront — Slovenia and natural wine in a room full of freekeh fritters and Persian-style rice is a specific point of view, and we respect it. We can't quote you bottle prices or name specific pours from here, so go in curious, ask the staff what's on, and trust that someone in that room knows what they're talking about.

The Little Door

· Los Angeles · French Mediterranean

The Wild Card

The Little Door is punching above its weight for a 27-bottle list — the Old World focus is genuine, the by-the-glass breadth is impressive, and the pricing mostly plays fair. We'd send a friend here specifically to drink by the glass and work through the more offbeat picks like the Ruche or the Forge Cellars Riesling.

Pizzeria Sei

· Los Angeles · Pizza and Natural Wine

The Wild Card

Pizzeria Sei earns its Wild Card badge because it's doing something genuinely uncommon: running a natural-wine program inside a pizza-obsessed, no-frills room on Pico Blvd without making either the pizza or the wine feel like an afterthought. We can't give you specific bottle recommendations until we get a verified list in hand, but if you trust the kitchen — and most people do — extending that trust to the wine program is a reasonable bet.

Mastro's Steakhouse Beverly Hills

Beverly Hills · Los Angeles · Steakhouse

The Lazy List

What we can document at Mastro's Beverly Hills is a narrow, Napa-centric selection that plays zero risk and offers zero surprise — which is a defensible choice for a power-steakhouse crowd, but not one we can enthusiastically endorse to wine lovers. The seven wines on record are all from a single event page, so the full list is almost certainly broader; but until we have more to work with, our honest advice is to know what you want before you sit down, because the list isn't going to inspire you.