The back patio at Via is a fantastic location for a nice Sunday brunch on a nice day. Am awning keeps the sun out of your face while still enjoying the outdoors, and if it gets chilly, there are heat lamps above to warm you up a bit.
The brunch menu had a nice mix of breakfast, lunch and dinner items, providing lots of options for everyone.
Being brunch, a refreshing cocktail was in order. I had the Easy Like Sunday Morning with small batch bourbon, peach liqueur, house made sour mix and fresh lemon. This was light and refreshing, like a bourbon mimosa. Maybe a little sweet for evening, but perfect for brunch.
I started with an order of the House made Zeppole, small Italian donuts fried to order and tossed with cinnamon sugar. This came as an order of seven, munchkin sized, warm donut balls coated with cinnamon sugar. These were light and tasty, not too heavy, and delicious. An order is perfect for two, but too much for one person as an appetizer.
For my “entree” I had the Lemon Ricotta Pancakes with Lavender butter, served with local maple syrup. This came as two medium to large pancakes with fresh cut strawberries, a little powdered sugar and a small tureen of a light maple syrup. The pancakes were lemony, but not overpowering and the ricotta in the batter gave them wonderful texture and made them much more filling than expected making the portion size actually on the large side. The balance of the lavender butter, lemon, strawberry and pancake itself was perfect. The maple syrup was light, not too sweet or sticky, and a perfect complement to the pancakes making an overall wonderful dish.
When I have something so sweet for breakfast/brunch, I usually like to end the meal with toast or english muffin so I also had the Tuscan Toast with whipped butter. This came as three fairly large pieces of Italian bread and more than enough butter. The butter was whipped perfectly and the Italian bread couldn’t have been toasted any better.
