Postino Wine Cafe flouts all the rules of successful restaurant planning in Phoenix. It's not in a strip mall on a major thoroughfare. You can't see the parking lot from the patio because someone planted a hedge in between. advertisement There's no seared ahi on the menu. Consequently, the place is always packed with urbanites trying to escape all of the above. They graze on bruschetta and creative antipasto dishes, munch on panini filled with the kinds of meats and cheese and marinated vegetables you'd find in an Italian grocery. They sip fine wine that they can pluck right off the wine racks in between tables. It's in a delightful space carved out of the old Arcadia post office (hence the name, which means "postman" in Italian). The walls alternate between institutional block and high-gloss panels painted in dark and fashionable colors. The high ceilings create an echo, filling the room with a din that somehow doesn't hinder conversation but makes it hard for diners at other tables to hear you. The big glass garage doors roll open in nice weather, turning the restaurant into a giant "Arizona room." The young and hip wait staff looks like the cast of an MTV reality show. The clientele is an eclectic mix of Gen-X professionals and genteel (but not flashy) boomers. "We don't serve martinis and that keeps the Scottsdale people away," one waitress quipped. "And we don't serve Bud Light, so we don't attract the rednecks." Wines run from $8 a glass, and the waiters can quickly tell you whether the Shiraz is peppery or the Pinot Noir is velvety. You can take a bottle home for $9 less than you'd pay to drink it in the restaurant. Manager Susan Burgos explains that she'd rather phrase it as a discount than say that there's a corkage fee of $9. The bruschetta ($10; pronounced "brew-SKETT-ah") is served on a cutting board in an assortment of four. You choose from such combinations as roasted red peppers with goat cheese, prosciutto with figs, white Tuscan beans and the expected crushed tomato with basil. The bread is crusty, each piece cut in four. Antipasto ($10) is not the usual plate of cold cuts, but rather a full plate of Italian summer sausage, white beans, dried apricots and cranberries, pistachios and almonds, a dollop of soft goat cheese, a few slivers of hard provolone. And, of course, crusty French bread to pile it on. Postino offers four meal-size salads. I tried the endive ($7.50), which had apples, pecans and grapes. It was fresh, chopped and crunchy, but frankly, I was more interested in the panini ($8).