The Fold Cafe & Patisserie
402 New Canterbury Rd
Dulwich Hill, Sydney
The fold is a new resident in Dulwich Hill’s growing arena of cool cafes and restaurants. It’s located in the heart of new Canterbury Rd shops. We arrived for a late lunch on a Saturday afternoon and as we entered the venue, we noticed an authentic décor, proudly boasting the owner’s Sri Lankan heritage. There is a coffee station at the front with ample seating inside. As we took our seats, our eyes were drawn to a really cool installation of woven baskets on the wall. We also noticed some mouth watering pastries (think freshly baked fluffy croissants, moist cinnamon scrolls and more) in the coffee station window.
We started our afternoon visit with coffee. Who doesn’t love a good coffee on a Saturday afternoon and here at the fold, they serve little marionette coffee, which we personally love. We had a long black and a flat white and really enjoyed both. Our flat white even had a swan drawn on it with the milk foam. It was so pretty we initially didn’t want to ruin the milk art by drinking the coffee.
Moving on to food now and here at the fold, they have a really diverse selection of dishes. There was a long list of traditional brunch items like eggs, granola and various toasts to traditional Sri Linkan café style food like Appa-Appa and a Hopper breakfast. There was a lot to consider and we were a little stuck with what to order but we got chatting with Travin, one of the owners, who made us feel really welcome and talked us through the menu and helped us decide what to order. Now, before we talk about what we enjoyed for lunch, lets spend some time talking about the Hopper. A hopper is a coconut laced rice flour pancake and an egg hopper is a hopper with an egg cooked in it. Both are very popular in Sri Lanka and here at the fold, they make everything from scratch, on premises, and this includes the hoppers. We even got a sneak peak of the chef making an egg hopper in the kitchen (sshh don’t tell anyone). The Appa-Appa is the fold’s signature dish featuring an egg hopper, two plain hoppers lunu minis and seeni sambol. It also came with a delicious chicken curry but you could order it with a lentil curry instead, if you are after a vegetarian option. This traditional Sri Linkan meal was bursting with rich flavours with the zestines of the sambol combining with the richness of the curry, all being folded in hopper fluffiness. It was delicious.
We also tried the French toast, which featured a home made brioche (yes made on premises OMG) with caramelised fruit, mascarpone and a delicious kithul jaggery syryp which was to die for. Kithul Jaggery syrup is made from the sap harvested from the Jaggery Palm that grow all over Sri Lanka. The French toast was just amazing, a perfection of flavours and ingredients. Overall a really enjoyable and delicious afternoon.
There might be many reasons you might want to visit the Inner West on a weekend and now that fold is here, you have one more.
The Fold is open 7 days a week for breakfast, brunch and lunch. It definitely won’t be long till we visit again.
The Dukes dined as guests of The Fold.