Vivid Fire Kitchen 2026 Sydney Review: Best Food at Vivid Festival

Vivid Fire Kitchen for Vivid Sydney is back again for the third year in a row. This outdoor food festival for the Vivid light festival has a theme of flames and fire and is billed as a big backyard Australian BBQ. Find out what is on offer this year.

It's a rainy Thursday night when Mr NQN and I are driving towards Barangaroo. We are on our way to a preview of the Vivid Fire Festival the night before it opened. This year it is located at Stargazer Lawn at Barangaroo (with a parking station right underneath it) and it runs for the entire length of Vivid from the 22nd May to 13 June 2026 from 6-11pm.

Entry is free and there is one undercover marquee and an undercover bar (if raining, which it often is!). These are all in order of distance from the entrance. And please excuse the pics-they're done with a phone as I left my camera behind because of the rain!

1 - Antico Woodfired Pizza

There are few things available at Antico Woodfired Kitchen: mainly pizza sandwiches aka sandwiches made with a pizza base as the bread as well as pizzas, pizza portafoglia or a portable Pizza wallet and cannoli. We try their recommendations of a mortadella pizza sandwich. This sandwich is for those of us that want a little bit of everything in our sandwich from two types of cheese (melted mozzarella and burrata), some meat (thinly sliced mortadella), some greenery (rocket and basil) and sauces (pesto, hot honey and olive oil). It's great for sharing too as it is cut up into sections. We also try the Pizza Portafolgia ($20) which is simpler and with less filling but still very tasty. It's filled with melted mozzarella on a tomato base and is folded for easy eating. It's sort of the opposite from the juicy, filled mortadella sandwich above but isn't dry.

We can't resist a cannoli and they have two flavours: ricotta and chocolate. It's ricotta all the way with a crisp cannoli shell and a creamy ricotta filling spiked with candied orange inside. Divine!

2 - Olympic Meats

This is the first year for Olympic Meats at the Vivid Fire Festival and the popular Marrickville eatery has two items on offer: a chicken pitogyro and a lamb pita souvlaki. The chicken wrap is often sold out at the eatery so we grabbed the chance to try one here.

The chicken maryland is so juicy and tender and served in a pita bread wrap filled with onion, tomato, tzatziki, sauce and sweet pickled pepper that give it a mild, spicy tingle. At $18 it is one of the more well priced options.

3 - Firepop

Firepop is a temple to wagyu and I first tried them at the Easter Show where they were my favourite stand as it was beautifully cooked wagyu that was a step above a lot of festival food. They have 3 meat and 1 vegetable option (sweetcorn with cheese).

But if want to savour perfectly cooked wagyu then try their Butter Cube with Fullblood MBS9+ wagyu cube with salt flakes, garlic crisps and a cured egg yolk and soy sauce. It's just a bite but it's sublime. The Butter Cube is all about small morsels of the best tasting wagyu so if you want something big or filling then try the other skewers.

4 - Hoy Pinoy

Hoy Pinoy do the rounds of festival popping up in Victoria and NSW with an anchor at Melbourne's Queen Victoria Market. They do chicken, pork and beef skewers and we try the latter two as the chicken is still cooking.

The pork is my favourite as it goes so well with intensely flavoured and thickly basted sweet sauce. Wash the skewers down with a refreshing ube lemonade.

5 - Vivid Fire Pit

Vivid Fire Pit is located just at the entrance of the Vivid Fire Kitchen and features 3 chefs cooking a range of different items.

We try a few selections here starting with Chef Nicola Coccia from Carne & Cucina who is making a grilled hemp fed beef spiedino $22 with a capsicum and salsa verde. The meat is so tender and juicy but still has a texture to it and the sauces really complement the rich meat.

The kangaroo shawarma is by Chef Ben Devlin and this is Mr NQN's favourite. It's grilled kangaroo fillet in a wrap and seared with garlic mayonnaise and macadamia dukkah. I really liked this as the accompaniments really balance the kangaroo so that you wanted to keep devouring it.

The rub on the chicken asado was also really good and the chicken was succulent and juicy. I do think that this was a bit pricier compared to other things as it was just two smallish pieces of chicken without any salad or accompaniments. But in terms of flavour this was very moreish.

6 - Yummy Yummy Knafeh

Save room for dessert as there's a whole "dessert alley" to choose from. Festival favourite Yummy Yummy Knafeh is here giving his full knafeh experience. "Yummy yummy!" he calls and cuts off a cheesy slab of knafeh.

His knafeh is cheesy and sweet with plenty of syrup and the cheese stretch is practically guaranteed.

7 - Bon Brulee

Bon Brulee are selling shareable creme brulees, torched to order. They're actually big enough for 2-3 people to share and are made to be thinner and wider so that you get more toffee crunch on top.

Each creme brulee does take a bit of time to torch and you're best to wait at least a minute for the toffee to harden to crisp. They told us to wait 30 seconds but the toffee was still a bit sticky. The custard below was delicious though.

8 - Thicc S'mores Bar

Bon Brulee's sister business and next stand neighbour is Thicc S'mores bar that sells a range of thick cookies ready to go or served with soft serve. They also have some freshly torched marshmallow laden items from a torched hot chocolate S'mores, S'mores Cookie and a marshmallow Lemon Meringue Cookie.

We try the hot chocolate (guaranteed to give you a marshmallow moustache) and a S'mores cookies. They torch each fresh to order and they are gooey and very sweet. If you love your sweets sweet, these are for you.

9 - Messina

Gelato Messina has three items on offer and they're all delicious sounding but most of them were sold out so we went with the Churro Flan Tastic which is fior di latte gelato on chocolate mud cake with caramel flan and chocolate sauce and crunchy churros. This along with Mr Spanish Churros were my pick for dessert and Messina rarely misses with their flavour combos.

10 - Mr Spanish Churros

Make sure to look out for Mr Spanish Churros as they're located a little bit tucked away at the end. They sell regular churros with chocolate dipping sauce as well as Nutella, Bueno and caramel filled churros as well as churros cones. It's hard to choose which churro cone to get and there's a choice of creme brulee, matcha or Dubai chocolate but I opted for the matcha brulee cone.

I watch them wrap the churros dough around the wooden cone and fry it fresh before rolling it in sugar and filling it with with matcha custard and then bruleeing the top. The matcha brulee churro cone is perfect as the matcha balance the sweetness. It was so crisp and creamy and one of my favourite desserts of the night.

So tell me Dear Reader, have you been to Vivid? Which dishes appeal to you the most?