Olive oil facts often circulate through my brain – maybe too much. I became an unreformed nerd after making a podcast about the pantry staple. Did you know Australia’s first commercially successful olive oil was made by inmates at Adelaide Gaol in 1870? Or that a few glugs of the fuel will safely kill a bug crawling in your ear? Or that counterfeiting olive oil is so lucrative, the crime has been compared to cocaine trafficking?
Admittedly, the high-grade stuff can be spectacularly good! A generous drizzle can transform many things – like a plain slice of bread or an okay tomato. But I never knew how flavour-altering a pour could be until I tried the buttermilk panna cotta bathed in olive oil at Firepop in Enmore.
When the stylish yakitori restaurant first opened in March 2024, I planned to ghost the aforementioned dessert entirely. I still remember Sydney hitting peak panna cotta in 2010, culminating in a restaurant guide issuing a “panna cotta ban” (reviewers had to steer clear of the creamy Italian dessert). It often feels like the most beige option on a menu, so I skip right past it anyway.
Join Broadsheet Access for exclusive invites to new venue openings in your city, plus other hot–ticket events. Membership starts at just $12 a month for an annual membership.
Join Now
On my first Firepop visit, the panna cotta was the only sweet thing available. That didn’t deactivate my always-keen-on-dessert feeling, though: I wanted something, and panna cotta, as bland as it is, was gonna have to suffice.
In one bite, I was instantly deprogrammed.
Firepop’s version has the power to convert all panna cotta sceptics. Let’s start with the ultra-creamy foundation: buttermilk, the smartly repurposed leftovers from the house-churned butter.
“When it first got on the menu, it got so popular, we had to buy in some buttermilk,” Firepop co-owner Alina Van tells me. “Whereas now, we make so much butter for the rest of the menu that we have plenty of buttermilk for panna cotta.”
The dessert riffs on the classic pairing of strawberries and cream, with slices of the fruit fanned on top. But these berries are pickled in white balsamic, giving each bite a bracing, fresh tang. A pour of Rio Vista Hardy’s Mammoth olive oil surges through the bowl as a finishing touch – glossing the panna cotta with a lively charge. The electric drops have a passionfruit-fresh brightness: as you spoon through the brined berries and buttermilk-smooth pudding, that olive oil has a massively reviving effect.
I’ve since eaten the panna cotta on countless Firepop visits. Even when I’m utterly stuffed from the menu’s greatest hits, I know dessert can be squeezed in. The pool of olive oil in the bowl just reboots your appetite – resetting you with each spoonful.
Chef and co-owner Raymond Hou has been serving this since the restaurant first opened, but the idea emerged prior. At a brewery pop-up, the pair served stracciatella with strawberries pickled in white balsamic. As for that revelatory drizzle? It echoes the first time the couple sampled the prize-winning South Australian oil at a Sydney Royal Fine Food Show.
Winemaker Thomas Hardy grew these colossal, distinctly Australian olives alongside South Australia’s Torrens River in the 19th century. So, naturally, Rio Vista called it Hardy’s Mammoth.
When I initially tried the dessert, with its glorious and reviving glugs of oil, I asked the staff so many questions they actually offered me a saucer of the stuff.
Since then, I’ve noticed olive oil gushing through many desserts around town, whether it’s frozen yoghurt pooled with European oil and Greek spoon sweets at Olympus, or almond gelato crunched up with caramelised almonds then slicked with Rio Vista’s rich orange-infused olive oil at Vineria Luisa.
Firepop’s panna cotta has been retooled slightly since its first serves. The elderflower petals are gone. The sugar level has dropped. The texture is smoother. There’s rhubarb compote in the bowl now, too. And that olive oil is poured tableside, sparking conversation about where it’s from.
I’ve seen these same gargantuan olives thriving in Japan, specifically in a Greek-themed olive park on the country’s olive-growing island. I don’t know why they’re there, but I do know, if pressed into oil and slathered over Firepop’s great dessert, it legitimately leaves you feeling reborn.
Dining and Cooking