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After more than a decade of butchering and grilling some of Sydney’s best meat skewers at pop-up locations around Sydney, Firepop has finally found a home: a two-storey restaurant in the Enmore Road entertainment precinct, with a sizzling 3.5-metre open charcoal and wood-fired grill.

With a keen focus on provenance, and popular signature dishes such as the “butter cube” (a skewer of Blackmore wagyu chuck rib, so named for its high meat marbling score of 9+) and “OG” sesame cumin lamb, Firepop became a beloved staple of Sydney’s pop-up food scene.

It operated under various names at breweries, seasonal shows and Haymarket Chinatown for the past 13 years, helmed by Raymond Hou and, from 2018, wife Alina Van.

At their first bricks-and-mortar venue, they’re excited to take that same, careful approach beyond the skewers – to an extended menu, a chef’s table experience, and a wine list Van became a certified sommelier to compile.

“We can finally deliver the experience we want,” Hou says.

“We can play the music we like, serve the drinks we feel like pair well with our food, and provide the fun, comfortable setting we always wanted to.”

Firepop soft-launched on Saturday, March 9, opening the bottom storey of their 80-seat venue next door to hatted tapas restaurant Bar Louise.

“We can finally deliver the experience we want”

Co-owner Raymond Hou

A bigger kitchen means a bigger menu, says Van: “We have the chance to expand our repertoire to seafood and vegetables, which used to be quite tricky for us as a pop-up.”

“We really want to champion local producers like Moonacres Farm and Living Earth Farm [both in the Southern Highlands], doing our very best to do justice to the ingredients they put so much hard work into growing.”

Old favourites (like corn ribs with Caciocavallo cheese, house-made yoghurt butter and garlic) will appear alongside ambitious additions inspired by Hou’s background in Shenyang, a city in northern China known for barbecue.

There are plans to serve a whole barbecued chicken, skewers of chicken tail (“it’s super fatty, like the wagyu cube of the chicken”) and potentially carp (a freshwater fish with a “muddy” stigma).

“Hearts, tongues, marrows, liver … it’s all the stuff I like to eat, but Alina is holding me back, saying, ‘Hold your horses!’,” Hou says.

“We aren’t serving all of that yet but we think it’s a more sustainable way of eating, and we think our customers will eventually trust us to try something new on a skewer.”

The opening menu features several new skewers, whole steaks (including from Stone Axe Wagyu) and lamb bone marrow – butchered in-house, served with soy, sake, miso and apple sauce.

“I don’t think other people serve it, partially because butchers don’t want to risk their fingers, but we’re crazy and we figured out a way,” Hou says.

“The flavour is very milky and delicate compared to beef bone marrow, and the texture is almost like silken tofu.”

There is an international wine list of “some classic, some more quirky” drops, curated by newly qualified Van. Cocktails will become available in a couple of weeks.

“I didn’t have any experience working with wine before I started studying, so we joke I’m the most qualified unqualified sommelier out there,” she says.

“I just wanted to be able to objectively evaluate our selection to make sure it was delicious and great value for money.”

Guests can choose to dine at the eight-seat chef’s table experience overlooking the new grill (available only to singles or couples, to encourage interaction with the chef) or the 20-seat “studio” in a separate dining room, before the second storey opens.

The interiors, designed with Sean Virili of Atelier and Alpha, are earthy and warm, with soft lighting, textural wall finishes and deep green leather banquette seating. Modern art adorns the walls, alongside a newspaper clipping dating back to 1938 – found during the renovation process.

Acoustics were also a big focus for the pair, who plan to invite DJs to play.

“We wanted the place to feel fun and friendly, somewhere you could be comfortable in,” Van says.

Walk-ins and bookings are available, with limited dog-friendly outdoor seating. After Easter, the restaurant plans to formally open and expand to seven days a week.

For now, it’s open Wednesday to Saturday from 5pm until late and Sunday noon until about 7pm.

137 Enmore Rd, Enmore, firepop.com.au