October 2024 update: Firepop’s upstairs dining room is now open, complete with smart furnishings and a bar. Got a celebration coming up? There’s also a private dining room available. Plus, the fire-fuelled spot on Enmore Road has introduced a late-night happy hour, which starts at 9.30pm and runs until midnight on Thursdays to Saturdays. Creatures of the night can swing by for $6 lagers, $10 glasses of red and white, and fire-kissed snacks starting from $6, including the lamb skewer with sesame cumin dukkah and chilli.
Read on for our review of Firepop from July 2024.
*****
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“Things taste better cooked over charcoal,” I hear Firepop’s co-owner and chef Raymond Hou say to a guest. From Bunnings’ snags to grilled fish by the sea, it’s one of life’s universal truths that fire and charcoal give character, smokiness, depth and flavour to food. It’s also one of life’s universal truths that things on sticks are just more delicious. Take a Paddle Pop, for example. Or a gilda. Wife-and-husband duo Alina Van and Hou know both of these truths well. Since 2019, they have been serving flame-licked skewers from their red food truck to hungry people all across Sydney, from festivals to breweries and the Royal Easter Show. In March, they opened their first bricks-and-mortar venue – a two-storey restaurant on Enmore Road – right next door to Bar Louise. The only thing that’s changed is that instead of scoffing their flame-cooked eats standing up, you can now enjoy them sitting down in a sophisticated dining room with a glass of wine.
It really is a nice, grown-up space. At the centre is the slick, eight-seater chef’s table with the best seats (olive-brown with a pink backrest) in the house. Wine bottles are lined up along the top of the wall. Impressively, Van trained to become a sommelier to put together Firepop’s drinks list, which features classic and new-age drops, as well as beers and ciders (cocktails are in the works). There’s also a second handsome room further along with curved archways, tables for groups of four, moody lighting and more wine. I’m told upstairs will be opening soon.
We take a seat and look at the menu. If you’re feeling hungry, there’s an incredible-value set menu for $80 per person, but tonight we’re going to pick and choose. I begin with a glass of skin contact 2023 Inkwell Tangerine viognier and it tastes like ripe stone fruit with a hint of acidity.
Sourdough bread from A.P Bakery comes with coconut labneh drizzled with kalamata olive oil and shredded mint for a light and fragrant step up from butter. Two corn ‘ribs’ are charred before being coated in a yoghurt butter and garlic, and Hou then shaves a mountain of aged caciocavallo cheese on top. I take a bite and the caciocavallo melts in my mouth like snow while injecting umami flavour. It’s buttery, salty, cheesy, sweet and just like all of Sabrina Carpenter’s recent songs, it’s a hit.
I had heard good things about Firepop’s ‘butter cube’, which sees a cube of Blackmore Wagyu with a marble score of 9+ come on a stick seasoned with just sea salt and crisp fried garlic. I dip the skewer in as much salt and garlic as I can, like it’s sherbet, and take a bite. The cooking of the meat is bang on. It is indeed rich and buttery, the flavour is incredible and it lives up to the hype.
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I look up and see two large fish carcasses and chillies dangling over the charcoal flames. I ask what they are and a chef says it’s a red-coloured alfonsino and a trevally, the latter of which was used as a crudo for a special tonight. He tells me they are going to use the bones to make an XO sauce. This underpins the whole ethos of Firepop, really. That nothing is wasted, and cooking things over fire makes them more delicious.
Firepop is one firecracker of a venue and, unlike the one on my most recent camping trip, I don’t see its flame going out any time soon.
Next, lamb skewers get amped up with an aromatic cumin and sesame dukkah, and the meat is tender and juicy. On the side, pickled red onions flecked with Davidson plum cut through the fattiness.
A side of potatoes dressed in a yoghurt butter that’s heady with dill tastes like the perfect potato salad for a picnic. What may be too risky to take to a picnic, however, is a fun plate of chubby and blistered shishito and padron peppers. It comes with a ramekin of frozen grapes, which seems random until Hou tells us it’s to cool your mouth if you eat a super hot one. My date got one and I’m now laughing. Shit, now I’ve got a hot one and my mouth is on fire. More frozen grapes would be great, thank you.
We finish with a panna cotta made from the buttermilk left over from house-made butter. It's topped with stewed strawberries, white balsamic and olive oil. The robust oil binds everything together, and the texture is like eating spoonfuls of cream. It’s exquisite.
In front of me, a chef is moving to the music, grilling skewers in twos, watching them like a hawk, and turning them every so often to make sure they are cooked just right. When they’re done, I see him gently sprinkle salt and then serve them to a guest. It’s this attention to detail, the technique and the on-point execution of cooking over flames that make Firepop ace. That, and the fact that both Van and Hou are just really lovely people.
If my boss let me publish a review with a fire emoji, know that it would be here. In its place, I will leave you with this: Firepop is one firecracker of a venue and, unlike the one on my most recent camping trip, I don’t see its flame going out any time soon.
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