The Flynn

This week’s pick is The Flynn on Bligh Street, a CBD pub that has undergone one of the more ambitious repositionings in Sydney this year. It reopened on 16 March 2026 after a $2 million-plus renovation, with East Coast Collective bringing in chef Justin North to push the food beyond standard CBD pub fare. The brief is restaurant-level food and service without abandoning the relaxed, after-work pub format.

The redesign has made the 200-seat venue brighter and more contemporary, while full table service has replaced the usual order-at-the-bar system. The drinks offer leans heavily into spritzes and cocktails alongside tap beer, with the venue still clearly chasing the CBD lunch and Friday-after-work crowd.

FOOD

The strongest reason to take another look at The Flynn is the kitchen. North’s menu mixes recognisable pub dishes with Mediterranean and Asian influences: steak frites, chicken parmigiana and pizzas sit alongside king prawn rolls, spanner crab mafaldine and green-tea tuna noodle salad. Independent coverage has praised the rectangular pizza for its puffy crust, soft centre and generous topping, as well as the lighter-style cheesecake. The food feels considerably more ambitious than the old sports-bar incarnation.

Food Quality: 8.3/10. For a CBD pub, the menu has genuine intent behind it rather than feeling assembled from the usual pub template. It stops short of the nines because the offer is broad and designed for volume rather than being an outright food destination.

ATMOSPHERE

The renovation appears to have solved one of The Flynn’s historic weaknesses. The venue is now lighter, smarter and better suited to long lunches and drinks, without completely erasing its high-energy CBD personality. Customer sentiment is solid rather than exceptional, with recurring positives around location, staff, value and atmosphere. Noise during peak periods remains the predictable trade-off for a 200-seat CBD pub on a Friday.

Atmosphere: 8.0/10. It is best suited to an after-work session, business lunch or group catch-up rather than a quiet neighbourhood-pub experience. The renovation has clearly lifted it, but its scale means intimacy is not really the point.

OVERALL

Overall: 8.2/10. The Flynn is a good example of where the Sydney pub market is heading: less reliance on generic pub food, stronger chef involvement, better interiors and a drinks program designed to compete with bars and casual restaurants. Steak frites, parmis, beer and happy hour remain part of the offer, but there is enough ambition around them to make the venue worth visiting specifically for the food.