Sonder Cafe — Restaurant in Sydney

New management and new menu.

If you want a creative Sydney café where the head chef takes creativity to another level, Sonder Sydney in Paddington is definitely worth a visit.

Tucked away in one of the laneways of Paddington, the cosy looking café may look small, but if you walk on inside, you will discover this gorgeous open air outside terrace garden, decked out with a luscious green wall. Imagine the magical land of Willy Wonka combined with a scene from the Mad Hatters Tea Party, there is a lot of attention to detail towards this carefully curated menu by chef Marcello. And the service from the staff is five star, they really make you feel at home.

We tried the following creations: 'Wiggle Wiggle Wiggle' - panna cotta granola. The prettiest granola bowl (and largest) I've every eaten. 'Lalan Eats & Sweet Jaybee' - Belgium waffles. Waffles don't get more OTT than these ones! 'Love Bite' - heart velvet hotcakes with 24K gold leaf and dulche le leche. The hotcakes were super fluffy, loved the dulche le leche sauce. 'Forgive My French!' - French toast brulee. I can now only eat French toast served inside a pineapple! The beautiful vanilla syrup and brulee gets soaked up by the gorgeous French toast, this dish was one of my faves. 'Benny Colada' - avo eggs benedict. This dish is pure genius, eggs benny served on an avocado. Perfect for those on a keto diet. Plus, loved the juicy lamb sausage! 'Once you go dark you cant go' - black truffle crab linguine. The pure pleasure of black truffle, you get that lovely truffle-ly whiff as soon as the dish is almost brought to the table. 'Banh Mi if you can' - blue swimmer crab banh mi sandwich. The crab was super sweet and succulent, and very generous in serving size. Plus, the chips come in this amazing chilli majo sauce. 'Mexican Dona Meets Mr Kimchi' - tacos with fried egg, avocado and kimchi. One of my faves! I've never had fried egg or kimchi on a taco. Plus, the taco is named after one of my dear foodie friends. 'LMFAO' - hemp falafel burger. The perfect veggie burger.

I loved all of the dishes, each dish brought out raised the bar higher and higher in terms of creativity and flavours.

A massive thank you to Chef Marcello for your hospitality and creative menu delights and your staff, Leina, Serena, Kay and Andy for looking after us. You made us feel right at home in your courtyard and were so attentive.

I can't wait to come back again to Sonder to try more creations off the menu!

Note: I dined as a guest of the venue. All views and opinions expressed...

We visited this cafe a couple of weeks ago for lunch and left massively disappointed. It's a shame because we had a fantastic brunch there a couple of weeks earlier in its lovely courtyard, which I would have rated this place 5 stars for. It seems there has been a change in management and menu and now it's terrible. When we arrived there were very few customers and no atmosphere, which was a bit strange as it was absolutely packed the previous time we visited. What followed went a long way to explain this. The menu is a nightmare; they have so many items, all with ridiculous names of little discernible relevance to the food itself, and it's all stuffed on one A3 sheet that is cluttered and migraine-inducing. The waitress then explained that the majority of items were unavailable. We took some more time to navigate the menu and noticed the items were outrageously overpriced ($26 for a banh mi sandwich, if I recall correctly). Another red flag was the brief guide on the back of the menu to write a good google review. We were so overwhelmed by the experience that we simply ordered a couple of coffees, which were OK, so that we could leave. It was incredibly disappointing, because we were so excited to return to what we thought was a great cafe. I've been thinking for weeks about writing this review because I walk past the cafe every day and remember the experience, so I thought I'd see what's been written recently. Unsurprisingly there are a number of bloggers dishing out 5 stars, but the rest do seem to have had similar experiences and thoughts to ours. It strikes me as a little disingenuous that they have been allowed to keep the dozens of 4 and 5 star reviews from the previous management/menu. That convinced me to write this. Overall: the staff are nice but the food/menu is overpriced and...

We have been dining at Sonder regularly for 4 years now and are always so impressed with the quality of food, friendliness of the staff and the atmosphere generally. As regulars, the Sonder staff have seen us grow from an engaged couple, married couple and now as a couple with a young toddler.

We have really appreciated Sonder’s support along our journey and in particular wanted to share our very positive experience of dining at Sonder with our now 13 month old daughter recently.

When we arrive at Sonder, the staff always help lift the pram up the steps, and direct us to a pram friendly table. Without asking, they quickly bring a highchair and clean it for us.

While we wait for our food, they often bring a toy cup for our daughter to play with to keep her entertained. When our food comes, they bring toddler friendly cutlery for our daughter as well as normal cutlery for us.

It’s little things like this that turn what is normally a very stressful experience taking a toddler to a café into a really lovely experience. If you are in a similar situation, I can highly recommend Sonder as a baby friendly place to go to as well as a wonderful place to dine for...