Henry Lee's Redfern

Henry Lee's runs a modern Asian cafe playbook out of a Redfern corner, with the entrance off Hart Street rather than the Eveleigh Street frontage people assume. The menu jumps from corn fritters and crab croissants to carbonara udon and mushroom chips, and the sakura jelly lemonade does the rounds on every second table. It opens 8am to 2:30pm daily, so this is a breakfast and lunch venue and the afternoon walker needs another plan.

The courtyard

Listing and diner reports have dogs welcome in the open air courtyard, with dog water bowls provided and standard on lead etiquette applying. The courtyard is the reason this works at all in inner Sydney: your dog gets a walled off patch of calm instead of a kerbside footpath, and the bowls being already there saves you carrying one. It fills quickly on weekends, so an early table is the polite move for everyone, dogs included.

Entry via Hart Street keeps you off the busiest stretch of Eveleigh Street, and street parking around Redfern is the usual inner city lottery, so the train is often easier with Redfern station a short walk away. Weekday mornings see the local dog crowd in before the lunch rush, and the courtyard tables wipe down quickly, so a wet dog after a puddle heavy walk is not the crisis it would be indoors. The 2:30pm close across all seven days is worth a second look when you are timing the visit around a dog walk.

Close by with the dogs

A short wander south, Blackbird & Co is the Erskineville coffee fallback, and Crown Park gives the dog a grass hit before the food. Further along, Naxeion Cafe keeps the Zetland side covered. The full list lives on the dog friendly cafes in NSW page.