Postino has been a Lafayette institution since 1992, housed in a charming Carr Jones-designed historic building in the heart of downtown. The restaurant celebrates Italian-influenced California cuisine, with a focus on fresh, seasonal ingredients and housemade pastas. With over 1,100 reviews and consistently high ratings, it remains one of Lamorinda’s most beloved dining destinations.
What to Expect
The atmosphere is white-tablecloth elegant without being stuffy — warm lighting, exposed brick, and that unmistakable hum of a neighborhood institution. It’s the kind of place you go for anniversaries, birthdays, or when you want to impress out-of-town guests. The bar area offers a slightly more casual vibe if you prefer.
Both indoor and outdoor patio seating are available, with the patio being particularly lovely on warm evenings.
Recommended Dishes
- Housemade Pastas — The kitchen excels here; don’t skip them
- Seasonal Risotto — Changes regularly, always excellent
- Osso Buco — Rich, falling-off-the-bone, and perfectly braised
- Antipasti Selection — Great for sharing to start
Lunch at Postino
A more recent addition, lunch service offers a lighter take on the dinner menu — perfect for a civilized midday meal in downtown Lafayette. Same quality, slightly quicker pace.
The Patio Experience
Postino’s outdoor patio is one of downtown Lafayette’s gems — especially during spring and early fall when the weather is perfect for al fresco dining. The golden afternoon light filtering through creates an ideal setting for a leisurely lunch or romantic dinner. Request outdoor seating when you book if weather permits.
Good to Know
- Reservations strongly recommended, especially weekends — bookings via Toast Tables on their website
- No Sunday lunch — Sunday is dinner-only (4:30pm-8pm); the lunch service runs Monday through Saturday
- Bar seating between services — the bar offers the full menu in the gap between lunch (3pm) and dinner (4:30pm), useful for an off-hour drop-in
- Delivery & Takeout available via their website
- Valet parking available
- Full bar with excellent Italian wine selection
- Private dining room for events and celebrations
- Catering available for special occasions
Restaurant Row: Walking Distance Pair-Ups
Postino anchors the upscale end of downtown Lafayette’s Restaurant Row, but it’s not isolated — three more casual spots sit within a one-block walk and pair naturally with a drink-here / dinner-there split:
- Batch & Brine (3602 Mt. Diablo Blvd) — world-kitchen brunch and dinner with a generous Mon-Fri 2:30–5:30pm Happy Hour; useful for an early drink before a 7pm Postino reservation
- Social Bird (3593 Mt. Diablo Blvd) — lively American gastropub with three patios and craft cocktails; good landing spot if visiting relatives want a livelier post-dinner round
- The Hideout Kitchen (around the corner in Lafayette Circle) — Californian comfort cuisine in a quieter bistro setting, with a daily 3–5pm Happy Hour at the bar; the natural choice when one half of the party wants a calmer pre-dinner drink than a busy Postino bar can offer between services
All four are walkable from the same downtown parking, so a party split across two venues doesn’t require moving the car.
This Week: Father’s Day Sunday, June 21
With AUHSD graduation week (June 11–13) now behind us and the visiting-grandparents wave largely flown home, Postino’s reservation book is back to its normal mid-June rhythm — and the next dated beat on the calendar is Father’s Day, Sunday June 21, five days from today (Tuesday June 16).
- Father’s Day reservations — book by midweek. Postino runs a typical Sunday dinner schedule on Father’s Day (4:30–8pm, no lunch). The 5:00–6:30pm window books out roughly two weeks ahead of Father’s Day — by today (Tuesday June 16, T-minus 5 days), the prime 6:00 and 6:30pm slots are typically full, but the 5:00pm and 5:30pm early seatings still turn up as fallback availability through midweek as plans firm up. The 7:30–8:00pm tail end is the late-call play if the early window is fully gone. The patio’s golden-hour light is especially good on Father’s Day evening (sunset June 21 is past 8:35pm) if you can land the early seating.
- Last week — AUHSD graduation week recap (June 11–13). The eleventh consecutive Miramonte/Campolindo grad Saturday is in the books. The pattern held: Thursday June 11 (Acalanes commencement) ran a post-ceremony dinner rush from 7:00pm onward with the 7:30–8:00pm tables tight all night; Friday June 12 paired the early seatings with the calm-interior counterweight to the Rock the Plaza concert two blocks east, with 8:00pm filling on the post-concert wave; and Saturday June 13 saw the patio and 7:00–8:00pm tables booked out since the prior midweek, with the 5:00pm seating doing its usual work as the only unbooked weekend slot. Worth remembering for next year’s graduation families: the lunch service ahead of an evening commencement and the bar-between-services 3–4:30pm window were the two cleanest beat-the-rush moves all week.
- This week (Tue–Thu, June 16–18). Genuine walk-in territory at lunch and on weeknight dinners — the post-graduation calm before the Father’s Day weekend booking surge. Tuesday and Wednesday dinner are back to near-guaranteed reservation availability through Friday morning. The bar between lunch (3pm close) and dinner (4:30pm open) is the cleanest off-hour drop-in window of the week.
If you want the bar instead of a reserved table this week, the gap between lunch and dinner (3:00–4:30pm Mon–Sat) runs the bar with no reservation required and is the easy mid-afternoon move for a glass-of-wine pause. For a pre-dinner drink elsewhere on Restaurant Row, The Hideout Kitchen around the corner in Lafayette Circle holds a daily 3–5pm Happy Hour at the bar — the calmest pre-Postino landing spot any day of the week. Batch & Brine one block west runs its Mon–Fri 2:30–5:30pm Happy Hour for a louder, gastropub-energy alternative.
2026 Closure Dates
Postino publishes its annual closure calendar in advance — worth knowing if you’re planning ahead:
- Monday, May 25 — Closed for Memorial Day
- Saturday, July 4 — Closed for Fourth of July
- Monday, September 7 — Closed for Labor Day
- Friday-Saturday, September 19-20 — Open through Lafayette’s Art & Wine Festival weekend (worth a reservation as downtown gets busy)
- Thursday, November 26 — Closed for Thanksgiving
- Thursday, December 25 — Closed for Christmas
- Friday, December 26 — Dinner only (lunch closed)
- Thursday, December 31 — NYE dinner only (lunch closed)
Local Lore: The Carr Jones Building
The charming building housing Postino is a piece of local architectural history. It’s a Carr Jones design — Jones was a local architect known for his Spanish Revival and storybook style homes throughout the East Bay in the 1920s-30s. His residential designs in Oakland, Piedmont, and Berkeley are highly sought-after today.
This downtown Lafayette building showcases his signature touches: warm stucco, exposed brick, intimate scale, and that hard-to-define quality of feeling both elegant and approachable. When Postino opened in 1992, they weren’t just opening a restaurant — they were becoming stewards of a piece of Lafayette’s architectural heritage.
The marriage of California-Italian cuisine with a Carr Jones interior isn’t accidental. Both share a philosophy: quality materials, attention to detail, and timelessness over trendiness. After 30+ years, both the building and the restaurant have aged beautifully together.