Postino Offers a Light and Lively Brunch in LoHi

Arizona import Postino is known for its collection of wines by the glass, but after visiting for brunch, you'll want to trade in your merlot goblet for a champagne flute. The brunch menu is small and only offered until 1 p.m. (when the regular menu kicks in), but the choices are light, creative and portioned for easy sharing or mixing and matching. In fact, the most expensive item rings in at $10.50.

If you’ll be drinking for the majority of your brunch, start with the walnut toast, which comes with triple-crème Brie and housemade berry preserves, or a sturdy "farmhouse" scone (mine was apricot, but the flavor changes regularly) sided with apricot jam and salted butter. The combo of walnuts, cheese and jam on the toast plate pairs nicely with almost any beverage, and the crumbly scone offers a little extra heft to absorb the booze.

The farm scramble has just about everything you want in a breakfast dish without getting heavy: eggs, potatoes, onions, herbs and cheese, plus a side of leafy greens and tomatoes. While it wasn't the most beautiful breakfast dish, the flavors were well integrated.

Postino specializes in bruschetta, but doesn’t stop with just tomatoes as a topping, offering twelve variations of the traditional Italian antipasto. All of them are made on toasted sourdough (gluten-free bread is also available), whether mounded with tomato, basil and mozzarella; Brie, apple and fig spread; burrata, bacon, arugula and tomato; or sweet and spicy pepper jam and goat cheese, to name a few. You can also order a sampling of four bruschettas for $15. "Our bread is locally sourced and delivered fresh every morning,” says general manager Jennifer Gray-Beery.

Happy hour runs from 9 a.m to 5 p.m. on weekends, with $5 glasses of house wine (a step up from typical house wines) and $5 pitchers of beer. So if you're there for brunch, you'll overlap with happy hour — how often does that happen? And rather than standard bottomless mimosas, you can order a bucket of bubbly; the bottle of sparkling wine on ice comes with mini-carafes of orange juice and peach purée, so you can make your own mimosas and bellinis.

Postino has been serving LoHi for nearly four years and will soon have two more Denver locations — one at 145 Broadway, the other at East Ninth Avenue and Colorado Boulevard.

Postino LoHi is located at 2715 17th Street and serves brunch on Saturdays and Sundays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. For more information, call 303-433-6363 or visit the restaurant's website. Hot tip: Your dog is welcome to sit at your table; just enter by the patio steps.