Here we are in midwinter, a time when sunshine and lighthearted things are particularly appreciated. Bundling up and heading out to brunch requires some effort, but sometimes those efforts are amply repaid.
At Oceano in Clayton, most brunch guests gravitate towards the front windows, not surprisingly, and settle in for coffee, mimosas and a long spell of mulling over the menu. It's one of those menus that offer a plethora of alluring choices. And most of them are quite good. A few misses, yes, but not enough to send the brunch to the minor leagues with a good batting coach. Kick things off with first-ratte coffee, always a portent.
On the savory side, beyond the usual Benedict, the Benedict Oscar showcased crabmeat and stamed asparagus along with the eggs and a buttery hollandaise. Omelets, too, had several options. The carnivore in the group headed directly for a combination of ham, bacon, sausage, sweet pepper and cheese, the omelet topped with shards of housemade prosciutto. A garden omelet offered asparagus, roasted shiitake mushrooms, spinach, tomato and ricotta cheese. The sole complaint was that the ricotta, which had a faint tang of horseradish, was a golf-ball-sized lump plopped mid-omelet, leaving the cheese disconcertingly cold in the middle. Otherwise, both omelets were excellent.
More of a surprise was the smoked salmon fritatta. Fritatti are open-face omelets, an Italian treatment of eggs with various fillings. This included spinach and tomato, too. When it arrived, it was perhaps a half-inch thick, unusually thin. But it was drizzled with a cream cheese sauce and chopped capers, giving added tang, and was absolutely delicious, one of the best versions of this I've had. And plaudits, too, to the housemade turkey sausage, links that were extremely moist for a 
turkey sausage. The only egg dish that fell short were the chilaquiles. Traditionally, corn tortillas are fried until they crisp up and then simmered in a chile sauce and topped with eggs. This was beautiful, a cylinder of the tortilla pieces interspersed with small pieces of chicken. But the tortillas were wheat, despite the menu description of "crispy", they were just occasionally chewy and the sauce was lackluster. The house breakfast potatoes, deepfried chunks with onion and sweet peppers, were the base for a competently fried egg and slices of avocado, and that was fine, but the chilaquiles were far too civilized and "adapted" for what's essentially a home-kitchen dish.
On the sweet side of things, lemon ricotta pancakes were a joy. Incredibly tender, full of lemon 
flavor that was aided and abetted with a lemony custard sauce, the whole thing topped with fresh blueberries, the proferred syrup and butter were totally unnecessary. It was the sort of dish that produced moans as it was passed around. Bananas Foster french toast used banana-walnut bread that didn't seem to have been battered, just grilled and topped with a brown sugar sauce with a good hand with the rum, and sliced bananas. Lily-gilding was accomplished with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Very rich indeed, to be sure, it suffered from the thck slices of bread's dryness – hard to imagine a banana bread dry, yes, but it was at the sides. (A soak in a custard batter before grilling would have solved that but made the bread more fragile to work with.)
Delightful, patient service with a group who couldn't make up its collective mind for some time. But before coffee, who can?
Oceano Bistro 
44 N. Brentwood Blvd., Clayton
314-721-9400
www.oceanobistro.com
Brunch: Sunday
Credit cards: Yes
Wheelchair access: Good
Smoking: No
Entrees: $8-$16
