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How do you go from being a streetwise food stall to a fine diner in a matter of weeks? At Easter, Raymond Hou and Alina Van were grilling wagyu and lamb firepops (yakitori-style skewers) at their fiery red, custom-made barbecue stall at the Royal Easter Show, as a hungry crowd ate straight from the stick.

Now they’re grilling wagyu and lamb firepops in their newly opened fine diner in Enmore, where stemmed wine glasses line the shelves and polished cutlery rests on linen.

It’s quite the switch, but it’s been a long time coming. Hou and Van launched Firepop pop-ups in 2019. By 2024, they needed bricks and mortar. “We wanted to properly host our guests in our own place,” they say.

Firepop, the restaurant, opened in March, proudly showcasing a “chef’s table”, a 3.5-metre counter facing a line-up of charcoal and wood grills welded into place by Hou. You’re close enough to feel warm, but not close enough to baste yourself in garlic oil and turn every three minutes.

There is also a small, moody studio dining room, with upstairs dining opening mid-May, complete with fireplace and banquette seating.

Of the few dishes not licked by fire, Sydney rock oysters (Appellation from Merimbula) come puddled with fermented chilli and finger lime ($8 each). There is always crudo such as sweet, delicate raw boar fish ($25) marinated in white soy, citrus and mandarin oil.

Corn rib ($16) is instant fun, a flank of corn cob smoky from the grill under a shower of caciocavallo, resting on tied corn husks to prove where it’s come from.

The signature stick is charcoal-grilled New England lamb spiced with sesame and cumin dukkah that evokes north-eastern China. It’s great.

But most of the sticks are good – bouncy little grilled chicken hearts from Aurum Poultry ($14) that act like petals of offal, and skewers of fatty and fiery shishito and padron peppers ($12). The chef sends out a frozen grape to cool your tongue if you get a random super-hot one, which I did; sweet.

Two locals next to me are “here for the bone marrow”, which is touched with soy, sake, miso and apple and served on two half-bones ($14); super buttery.

It all sounds like drinking food, but elevated. Van has put together a personal list, the wines chosen for shared values or personal association. The 2019 La Violetta Nova ($20) is a breezy blend of shiraz, pinot, grenache and a touch of Vermentino from the Great Southern region of WA.

There are steaks, too – Stone Axe full-blood wagyu scotch fillet is $199 for 300 grams – but you can get that elsewhere. Here, you should try the full-blood MBS9+ wagyu beef cube ($19), dressed in jus and crunchy with sea salt and crisp garlic. With all that marbling (raw, it really does look like pink marble), it melts on the tongue like deeply meaty butter.

There’s also a gentle lactic dish of crushed potatoes ($15) with dill and yoghurt that’s like eating clouds, if you should wish to eat clouds.

It seems the times are right for joining up with a mate for a few skewers, then seeing what the evening brings. Tip: if you have a starter and a few skewers and want to end on dessert (panna cotta made from buttermilk left over from the butter-making process and served with strawberries marinated in white balsamic, $18) then do the set menu and get all that for $80 a head.

Somehow, Firepop manages to keep the thrill of the grill, with its whiffs of white pepper, slicks of garlic oil and crunch of red onion pickles, even while delivering it with modest grace and quiet determination.

It’s another sign that the food coming from the inner west – inner west cuisine, if you will – is exciting, driven by ambition, work ethic, suburban pride and inspiration. No flash in the pan, then, but a slow burn.