I work at Broadsheet, so it’s safe to say I have a lot of hospo crushes. I’ve got a crush on the Bar Planet Dirty Martini that’s got the salinity of the ocean. I’ve got a crush on the reliability of the number five naan at Indian Home Diner. And I’ve got a well-documented crush on Joe’s Table. But my biggest hospitality crush would have to be on Firepop – specifically its founders, wife-husband duo Alina Van and Raymond Hou.

This crush stretches back to my first Firepop encounter at their Batch Brewing pop-up in 2020. Since then, I’ve followed them around the inner west to various breweries and distilleries. (If you knew how much I hate driving in Sydney, you’d recognise this as the true act of love it is.) I also mentioned them in my Broadsheet job interview and I’m pretty sure it’s what got me the gig.

Why am I in love with them? Well, beyond the food, Van and Hou are two of the very best people in hospitality. In everything they do they give it their all – take the DIY barbeque kits of 2021, for example. They’ve spent more than a year renovating their new Enmore Road space, which saw them clock 10-hour days, seven days a week, for the last six months – painting, tiling and managing the entire project. Other business owners on Enmore Road thought that they were builders.

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“We’ve always taken house-made very seriously, but we didn’t realise we were going to take it to this level,” Hou tells Broadsheet. Hou even welded the venue’s grill himself.

While Van was originally a software developer, Hou is no stranger to the Sydney food scene. In 2006 he opened Zhong Guo Xiao Chi Fang (China Snack Square), a barbeque stall in Chinatown’s night markets, with his friends. They moved into the Eating World food court where they traded under the name Red Charcoal, then Lamb & Cumin, until 2017.

In 2019 the pair changed direction – they had grown up and knew their next venture needed to, too. They created Firepop, a more mature market stall (complete with a coolroom and a grill) where they would be able to do justice to the ingredients they were working with.

Then came plans to transform the Firepop stall into a full-service restaurant. “We originally thought we would develop on what Ray knows, which is a fast-casual quick-service style restaurant,” Van says. “[But] we started using amazing produce and met a lot of friends in the restaurant industry and admired their passion. We realised we wanted to build something that we would like to eat at.”

Their new restaurant fits the bill. There are two tables on Enmore Road for al fresco seating and an eight-seat chef’s table overlooking the impressive open-flame grill, while in a moody back room, past curved windows, a green studio space houses four-top tables. Firepop’s first-floor space will open after Easter, extending the venue’s capacity to something a little north of 80. Upstairs you can expect banquette seating, a fireplace and a private dining room.

“I don’t like the word ‘fusion’,” Hou says of the menu. “And modern Australian is correct [but] it’s more inner-west cuisine because it was born in this area.” Expect favourites from the pop-ups – including the sourdough with homemade coconut labneh, the OG and slim lamb skewers and 9+ marble score Wagyu pops. The corn ribs (a personal favourite of mine) have also made it on to the concise menu and, at the risk of sounding like that corn kid, I can’t imagine a more beautiful thing. It’s topped with caciocavallo cheese and house-churned butter – and it’s the best vegetable I’ve ever eaten.

Another strength of Firepop is that even as a small, family-run business it has always prioritised sustainability. The buttermilk left over from its churned butter graces a panna cotta topped with strawberries, white balsamic and Hardy’s Mammoth olive oil. Most of us would have been impressed with the butter alone but, for the new restaurant, the duo have ramped up the DIY, boning and filleting all the lamb themselves.

Van trained to become a sommelier ahead of the restaurant’s opening and is currently enrolled in a WSET diploma. Although humble and quick to point out that she’s still learning, Van has compiled a strong list of a few dozen local and international wines, as well as non-alcoholic beers and high-end French ciders. There are plans to expand the offering to include beers, cocktails, spirits and a small sake selection, too.

Van hopes to highlight the local distilleries and breweries that hosted the Firepop pop-up over the years. What more would you expect from the inner west?

Firepop
137 Enmore Road, Enmore
(02) 9360 8558

Hours:
Wed to Sat 5pm–late
Sun midday–late

firepop.com.au
@firepopaustralia