Sydney’s restaurant scene is humming with exciting venues. Small ones, big ones, fancy ones, breezy ones. We’re filling long-lived dining rooms that are now in new hands, and we’re finding brand new favourites. But if you take a look at all the new spots, there’s a clear trend: Greek food has hit its Sydney stride.
The Apollo opened its follow-up in Redfern at the end of last year, and it’s still tricky to get a seat. Olympic Meats sizzles every day, with people arriving 45 minutes before opening to get their name on the list. And Cypriot-Greek canteen Myra’s Kitchen has outgrown its little King Street shop in its first six months.
“We’re a bit of an underdog,” Myra’s chef owner-operator Chris Rummey tells Broadsheet. “Compared to all the new Greek restaurants in town, right? But we want to overdeliver.”
When Rummey opened Myra’s in September 2024, his family-recipe falafels and house-made sourdough pitas quickly gained a following. As did the juicy keftedes, smoky sheftalia and 12-hour slow-cooked lamb, often bolstered by Rummey’s house skoldalia (a thick sauce made from mashed potato, garlic, lemon and dill). Six months later, after the push-and-pull of the teeny space got too much with the lunchtime rush, he’s in the old Steki Taverna digs around the corner. Meet Myra’s Tavern.
“Today, when I was running around, I was helping the kitchen a little bit, but mainly I was just waiting tables and taking orders and making coffee, and it just felt so correct. I was in my flow state, you know?”
Myra’s Tavern takes the same daytime offering then supersizes it with a night-time menu. It’s currently operating as a “permanent pop-up”, until the menus are refined, the furniture’s made and a collection of family photos are framed for the wall. “It’s quiet, it’s air conditioned, no one smokes out the front. It’s like an oasis. There’s a garden out the back for 50 people. It just doesn’t feel real.”
Trends are often cyclical, and Sydney’s had standout Greek dining for decades. But the current wave is coming hard and fast – every opening seems to be red-hot from the get-go. “It feels inevitable. It feels like somehow Italian’s always been there, and now, finally, it’s Greece’s turn,” Rummey says.
“Everyone’s holidaying in Greece now. They used to holiday in Italy, that was the thing, right? Now all the young, post-uni crew – they’re going to Greece. There’s also the whole wog renaissance. Australian wogs – it’s just the coolest thing to be a wog, don’t you reckon? It used to be the worst thing, now everyone wants to be.”
Here are another five venues defining Sydney’s Greek revival.
The Hot-Listed walk-in-only grill house – from Timothy Cassimatis, a local chef who’s been waiting a decade to open a space – is arguably the hottest restaurant in Sydney right now. Six weeks after opening, there are still daily queues for loukanika (a pork, lamb and lentil sausage); yiros stuffed with brined, marinated and charcoaled meat from Whole Beast Butchery; and the deeply golden hand-cut chips fried off in beef tallow then doused in Nostimini. The filo for spanakopita and custard-filled bougatsa is stretched in-house, fitting for a venue that’s in Sydney’s Little Greece.
“I spent a lot of time mirroring my grandmother [in the kitchen], who [lived] just down the road,” Cassimatis says. “They still live there, so it hits a little bit close to home, opening up in this area. [Marrickville is] very Vietnamese-dominated now. But when I was a child, there was a lot more Greek stores and a very large Greek community. So I feel like I’ve come full circle, opening a shop here.”
Olympus, Redfern
Jonathan Barthelmess is known for Greek institution The Apollo, the big corner restaurant that’s been open in Potts Point since 2012. So, when it was announced he’d be opening another Greek joint in Redfern’s Wunderlich Lane, Sydney listened closely. Olympus welcomed diners in the first days of summer, and it’s still a fight to get a seat around the staggering 50-year-old bougainvillea the dining room encircles.
“I wanted to recreate a taverna in the mountains,” says Barthelmess. “The Apollo is an international Greek restaurant that could fit into any major city – with Olympus, I wanted to do an Athens-style garden taverna with a different style of dining.”
Ozge Kalvo (ex-Baba’s Place, Ester) is heading up the kitchen, pushing a seriously lengthy menu that’s properly enjoyed with a group (or guarantees multiple visits without the need to reorder a thing). The whipped taramasalata is outstanding, as is the duo of pies. Then there’s meze aplenty, charcoaled seafood and larger proteins, and heaps of veggies. Plus, frozen yoghurt topped with spoon fruits to finish.
“With the diversity and growth in fusion restaurants and the contemporary approaches to cooking out there, people naturally want to divert back to safe, reliable but delicious food,” Kalvo says. “In my opinion, that is Greek food. As well as this, Sydney draws a lot of influence from London’s dining scene, where restaurants like Agora have been fundamental to changing people’s perception about Greek food. Greek Australian chefs have been making names for themselves over there too, like Ella Mittas and Helena Moursellas.”
Chef Peter Conistis is a pioneer of Greek cooking Down Under. He spent three decades building and running venues like Eleni’s, Alpha, Omega and Ploos, gaining a reputation for a modern take on Greek classics. In late 2024, he put his mind to reimagining the ground floor dining room of 1898 CBD pub The Bristol Arms, opening Ela Ela.
“A mezedopolio is like a tapas bar. The menu isn’t structured like entrees, mains, desserts; it’s sharing plates from light through to bekri meze. Those are drunken meze – the substantial dishes to eat after you’ve had a few drinks.”
His mum’s spanakopita is cosy next to more imaginative takes like a dirty Greek Martini (which leans heavily on the flavour profile of the Greek salad) and a goat moussaka that uses artichokes instead of eggplants.
Ammos, Brighton-Le-Sands
Conistis has also been busy by the beach, opening Ammos in Brighton-Le-Sands. Here the approach is more traditionally Greek – big plates ideal for sharing, focused on woodfired meat and seafood.
“I’ve homed in on the food that I really grew up with, that my mum used to do, my grandma used to do,” says Conistis. “It’s a more pure, classic approach to Greek food – I’ve done the bells and whistles, the reinterpretations – I’ve done all that. I want people dining here to feel like they’re eating as they would at a Greek restaurant in Greece.”
Conistis classics, like the scallop moussaka with eggplant taramasalata, are heading out of the kitchen here. The wine list is 50 per cent Greek, and an ouzo trolley snakes through the dining room.
This charming little day-to-night eatery – from ’90s cafe hound Vito Mollica – isn’t strictly Greek. But it is led by ex-10 William St chef Stella Roditis, who’s infusing plenty of her heritage into the Med-leaning menu. That means mostly leaving produce to its own devices, but jazzing things up where necessary with Greek cheeses, garlicky dressings and flavour-packed pan juices. “It’s me trying to make food that I like to eat – and I happen to be great at making,” she says.
Greek fava – a yellow split-pea dip “like a hummus but different” – is excellent with a hunk of fresh, fluffy bread and a dish of tomatoes with beans “cooked to oblivion”. A simple green salad of romaine, green olives, eschalot and cucumber is dressed lightly, and the little stuffed zucchinis shine, swimming in light, bright avgolemono.
Additional reporting by Howard Chen, Callum McDermott and Pilar Mitchell.
