Walking down the stairway into the dark, stone vault that is the dining room The Rabbit Hole, diners really can feel like they are descending into a Wonderland world of whimsy.

The pen-scrawled menu is full of curious stuff you might find at the Mad Hatter’s tea party — at least if the Hatter had been up to date on local food trends. There is an artichoke-stuffed artichoke. There are Chicken Lollipops and Pabst Blue Mussels. There is local asparagus bundled in phyllo with a lime Hollandaise. There is even green eggs and ham.

It is the type of foodie high jinks that have been in short supply around here ever since the market tanked and credit for small, creative business owners disappeared like a Cheshire Cat.

Is it good? Yes, but it could be better.

The Rabbit Hole is a collaboration of part-owner Joe Campana, chef Josh Beemer, whom Campana drafted from Jack Quinn Irish Alehouse & Pub, and chef de cuisine Aaron Retka, who has since moved out of state. The junta took over the underground warren once inhabited by the inspired but short-lived Metropolitain this spring.

It is a wonderful space — dark and moody, modern and ancient-feeling, with private nooks for long conversations fueled by the creative wine and cocktail list.

The menu, too, seems imported from a hipper elsewhere. The chefs wanted everything to include a hint of surprise. So each dish has a playfulness of form or ingredients.

The first thing I wanted to know was if the place really, seriously serves eggs and ham that are green? “Yeah, and it’s actually very good,” a server offered on a recent visit. “And I’m not usually a ham person.”

Some of the playfulness pays off. Some of it can feel annoying, especially since prices here suggest professional precision.

An appetizer of house pickled vegetables ($6) in a sweet and tart tincture spiked with cardamom and clove was cool and refreshing on a summer night. But a long, slender plate arranged with three blocks of braised pig belly under redeye gravy ($10) was disappointingly heavy and dull — a crime, given the cut of meat and the price.

In contrast, the beer-steamed Pabst Blue Mussels ($12) offer very nice blue mussels (not the cheaper, imported green ones) in a delicious, garlicky broth. They are wonderful, but the portion seems like someone shrank it with a bottle marked “drink me.” I counted ten small mussels in almost no broth, with a good, but miserly bread stick on the side. Ordering mussels often means a big, steaming bowl with another for empties on the side and a crusty loaf for sopping up the broth. And usually it can be had for a few dollars less.

The duck wings ($9) may be the best bet on the appetizer list. Four large, tender wings come slaked in a rich sauce of plum, sesame and togarishi — a Japanese dried-pepper seasoning. The duck meat is so rich and fall-off-the-bone tender you’ll swear you are eating good ribs. And the sauce is dark and complex. It is the perfect food to go with the good, local beer list.

Entrees offer more madness, good and bad. The rabbit meat loaf in a smoked-tomato demiglacé ($15) was flavorful and firm, wrapped in bacon to give it a little extra kick, and stuffed with a carrot — a joke from the cooks. On the side came local potatoes, lightly mashed and seasoned to perfection.

But not all of the menu is such a hit. The whole trout ($15) stuffed with cheese grits and served with whole cob of roasted corn needs work. The corn was starchy and underdone. And the trout and grits were bland. The menu said they came with a tomato, leek and bacon comfit, which would have added welcome zing, but on our visit, it was more like a few nibbles of bacon.

The Colorado beef filet ($20) with Rainier cherry demiglacé and truffled sweet potatoes may be the safest bet if you don’t want to venture down such culinary tunnels as an all-bacon burger or lobster tortellini with elk chorizo, and the steak is cooked expertly to order. But the demiglacé is more like a heavy gravy and the sweet potato had no truffle flavor.

More successful is the curry tofu with roasted sweet potato ($13). The Rabbit Hole has a number of inventive vegetarian dishes. This one was attractively presented with colorful carrots and asparagus ranged around a grill-charred tofu block and thin disks of roasted yam. The coconut curry underlying it all was sweet and delicious.

If some aspects of the Rabbit Hole menu (including the pricey cocktails and desserts), seem to be works in progress, well that’s what you’d expect of a place that thrives on whimsy and experimentation.

Josh Beemer and Joe Campana with their buffalo back ribs, mashers and string bean dinner entree. Photo by STUART WONG, THE GAZETTE