Your First Meal of 2018 Could Be Hedge Row's New Brunch

If you're the kind of person who likes to be first at anything, here's a first that will give you brunch bragging rights while filling your belly on the first day of 2018. Cherry Creek's Hedge Row, which opened at 100 Steele Street last July, is launching brunch and has chosen Monday, January 1, to debut its fresh-baked pastries, eggy inventions and eye-opening cocktails.

Hedge Row is the creation of the Kitchen Restaurant Group, which also runs the Kitchen in Boulder and Denver as well as several locations of Next Door American Eatery. Like its siblings, Hedge Row focuses on local, sustainable food sourcing and simple presentations that allow the ingredients to shine. A wood-burning oven gives a little extra depth to many of the dishes on the lunch and dinner menus, and the same is true for the new brunch slate.

Spoonbread with barbecue pulled pork, flatbread loaded with smoked salmon and other bagel-inspired toppings, and even French toast presented in a miniature ceramic pan will get a turn in the hearth. But before you explore too far into the menu, start with a maple old-fashioned doughnut, some pear-cardamom coffee cake, a bourbon-pecan sticky bun or a spiced carrot muffin. Better yet, get all four for only $12.

Because not everyone is an early riser, Hedge Row's brunch menu slides seamlessly into lunch, with a dry-aged burger, char-grilled piri piri chicken and a medley of wood-roasted veggies.

The restaurant relies on Commonwealth Coffee Roasters for its drip coffee and espresso drinks, and there's also a range of "zero-proof" cocktails made with fresh fruit juices and syrups. But brunch is always better with a little booze; go for the traditional Bloody Mary (made with Real Dill Bloody Mary mix) or a mimosa, or choose something original like the Persian Lemon, Potent Portside (a real fog-lifter made with navy-strength gin, lemon and mint) or Bright & Early.

New Year's Day brunch at Hedge Row runs from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on January 1 and will include a free zero-proof cocktail and a custom portrait by artist Annie Herzig. After Monday, Hedge Row will switch to standard Saturday and Sunday brunches, also from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.