Flyover Fritterie - Redfern — Restaurant in Sydney

Branching out from their tiny Temperance Lane outlet into a brand new build in Redfern, Flyover Fritterie have also widened their vegan and vegetarian offering. Pulling up a curb level stool looking out onto the foot traffic on Regent Street, I contemplated the expanded menu over turmeric tonic ($4.90). Taken either hot or cold, this turmeric and lemon tea is all about the therapeutic root in the iced version, with the citrus stepping to the forefront in the heated drink.

With the paper cones switched out for plates, Indian fritters are still a big part of the offering at the Redfern store. Seasonal mixed fritters ($18.90) gives you plenty of pakoras to share with a pot of tamarind and mint chutneys. Under crisp, dry besan flour-based batter, onions, tapioca, broccoli, red cabbage and eggplant all ate well. Chilli fritters ($7.90/3) you have to order separately, but are worth the additional spent with the flavoursome long green chillies getting progressively hotter as you eat toward the stalk as they’re cooked whole with the seeds left in.

The star of the menu for me was the dosa potato jaffle ($16.90). This bread-based toastie is surprisingly filling with dosa potatoes, peanut chutney, crunchy coconut and cashews, great for a cold day. I was also quite taken with a side order of a popular festival dish, Ashtami black chickpeas ($7.90). The tasty black chickpeas are flavoured with cumin, coriander and chilli with fresh lime added table-side, and are a perfect way to break your fast any day!

Original review: (3.5 stars) Ducking down Temperance Lane sees you take you take your life into your own hands as you blindly navigate through a cloud of collective smoke from a hoard of desperate puffers. The light at the end of this reeking tunnel is a clever little eatery, thankfully positioned around a corner and as far away from the smokers as you can get.

Run by Gunjan Aylawadi and Patrick Frawley, Flyover specialises in pakoras and chai. The crunchy deep-fried Indian fritters are made using besan (chickpea flour), herbs and spices, and a rotating selection of seasonal vegetables. For my first visit, I ate them as a paper cone of Fritters ($9.90/$15.90) drizzled in house-made tamarind and mint chutneys. The contrast of cumin, green tomato, coriander and onion fritters, with greener Chinese broccoli and garlic fritters was good, though the large sized cone was overkill as lunch for one person. They ate well against a Flying Tai ($4.90) tamarind-based thirst-quencher, only wanting for some fresh chilli bite.

Braving the second-hand smoke for another vegan fix, on my repeat visit I took the day’s crunchy sweet potato, kale and garlic pakoras sandwiched between a soft potato bun as a Pao Burger ($11.90). Teamed with green leaves, tamarind chutney and beetroot, it was tangy and filling, but lacked any semblance of chilli heat. Pulling up on a stool in this smoke-free end of the laneway to eat my Indian street-style lunch, I overheard an Indian customer giving Aylawadi some similar stick about the insipid Fried Green Chillis ($1.90/each) he’d just eaten.

Musing over the eatery’s other focus – chai – I suspect if Flyover added an option for those of us who like Indian food to pack a bit of punch, it could win my business again, even if I do have to run the gauntlet of smokers. The Ginger Masala Iced Chai ($4.90) by the way, was built on Bonsoy soymilk and Assam black tea, against a gentle hint of ginger masala, making it good for those who hate the usual (overdone)...

I think this is the first restaurant I’m rating low otherwise I would never give bad reviews to restaurants as I understand & appreciate that it can be a difficult business to run especially when you are a very busy place on a Friday evening managing customers can never be easy (been there done that).

My experience yesterday evening when I visited with my friend was disappointing. It was our first visit to flyover fritters going there with a lot of expectations & I understand that we didn’t have a booking & walked in at around 6.30, the staff gave us a seat next to where the wine bottles were kept & not an actual table which we thought we will adjust seeing how busy the place was getting however in this process I didn’t find the staff to be courteous & kind enough while recommending us the same.

I must say we enjoyed the chai & fritters and saw the place was getting very crowded as the time was passing. In the middle of us having a good time & enjoying our food (total 40 mins might have passed), the main staff member came & told us that we can only sit here for 1.5 hrs as per restaurant policy, however I never saw any notice of that sort at the table or surrounding which usually Cafes like Edition roasters clearly have it written on their tables which is understandable & abided by the customers.

In spite of us adjusting to a bar kind of table while there were people sitting on the tables who were there prior to us arriving there, it was a bit embarrassing & unfair for us to be told about time limit which I felt is a bad customer experience & should have been handled differently by the staff. We left the place immediately as soon as that was told to us.

Nevertheless, we liked the food & ambience however customer experience was below par. I’m not sure if I would recommend this place next to anyone within my circle, however, I will let them know to make a booking next time...

I visited Flyover Redfern on a Thursday evening around 8:30 PM, lured by the overwhelming hype on social media and the promise of a vibrant dining experience. According to their website and Google, the restaurant is open until 10 PM. So, I expected to be treated with basic respect and professionalism. What I encountered, was nothing short of disgraceful. Upon arrival, I asked for a table for one. Despite there being an empty and available table, I was rudely told to sit next to the stairs where a flower vase was awkwardly placed. When I expressed my discomfort and politely refused, another staff member intervened, not to accommodate me, but to inform me that while I could sit at the table I originally requested, I would be forced to vacate and return to sit at the less desirable spot they intended for me if a couple or two individuals arrived later. To add insult to injury, I was told the upstairs section was closing, a claim that made no sense given the stated closing time of 10 PM. This is utterly unacceptable. How can a paying customer be treated as if they are an inconvenience, expected to uproot themselves mid-meal simply because someone “more important” walks in later? This is not just poor service, it is a blatant display of disrespect and a complete failure of basic hospitality. If the restaurant is open, every guest deserves to be seated and served without the looming threat of to vacate and sit somewhere else to make sure that the incoming guest has a better experience. I rarely write reviews, understanding the challenges of running a business. But this experience was so humiliating and infuriating that I cannot stay silent. Flyover Redfern needs to seriously reconsider how it treats its patrons. This kind of treatment is shameful and utterly unacceptable. I hope this review serves as a wake-up call for the management to introspect and reflect on staff’s manners...