Extended families, pilgrims from far-flung suburbs and locals clutching six-packs flock to Olympic Meats for vinegary brined octopus, spanakopita with epic crunch and flame-licked chicken, pork and lamb.
14.5/20
Greek$
You’ll smell the grill at Olympic Meats before you see it. The scent of spice and fat and oregano. Of mallee wood and ironbark. When you do see it, it’ll be a thing of beauty: a triple-stacked barbecue running at capacity, pillars of chicken and pork rotating slowly over glowing coals, lamb chops flashed hard over hot spots, chillies drying slowly in the rafters.
If you’re here, then by now, so is a queue, and the tables are probably full too. That’s been the case ever since Olympic Meats opened three months ago on the ground floor of a new apartment block near Dulwich Hill station.
Behind the blue-and-white tiles fronting the stainless-steel kitchen, Timothy Cassimatis is locked in. Every step, every move in his career, has been deliberate, made to get him to this point: mastering butchery at Vic’s Meat and Whole Beast Butchery, running the kitchen at Barzaari, launching a catering business during COVID, fine-tuning recipes and preparing feasts for friends and cousins.
All this, along with his own research and the knowledge that comes from growing up in a family with Peloponnese roots, have been poured into his first restaurant. Line up for takeaway, order a gyros, and Cassimatis has interrogated every aspect of the stuffed bread.
The pita, made on a sourdough starter, is rolled by hand and baked in the wood oven to order. The tzatziki incorporates some of the 60 to 70 litres of yoghurt Cassimatis makes each week, fermented for 16 hours with a culture brought from Greece, then hung until it’s thick. Order pork, and it’ll be a mix of shoulder and belly, brined, marinated in whey, onion and spice, then spun over coals for five hours. Pickles, rich in aniseed, are made in house.
I’ve torn open fresh gyros on the street front. I’ve spread them on picnic rugs with friends. I’ve ferried them home to my neighbour. At their best, they’re living proof that there’s no reason takeaway food can’t be given the same level of care as anything a fine-diner can offer. When they’re good, they’re very good. But then some days, the sauces have been applied too liberally, the pita (early on, at least) have been too flat, too biscuity. The fava and mushroom version? Inspired, but overly mushy.
In the Marrickville gyros stakes – and there are stakes: this is the historical heartland of Sydney’s Greek community – these flaws can be damning. Nearby institutions Victoria Yeeros and The Yeeros Shop may not obsess over every single detail as much as Cassimatis, but their ratios have been fine-tuned over decades. Olympic Meats is still getting there.
But the best way to understand why the pure, unwavering hype is so deserved? Scan the QR code and wait for a table. Do so and you’ll stand alongside multi-generational families, pilgrims from the northern suburbs, locals clutching six-packs primed to take advantage of the BYO policy. Tables and chairs are mostly takeaway-shop metal, but the red perspex signs scrawled with specials, the banquettes, olive branches and framed vintage posters show an eye for design that most takeaways only dream of.
Load up a table, and the gyros are the smallest part of the picture. Ordering that same warm fava with pita on the side turns it into a slick, memorable dip. A plate of vinegary brined octopus, strewn with green chilli and onion and dusted with paprika, jolts my half-Cypriot dining companion straight back to her yiayia’s kitchen. The loukanika sausage, dense and full of snap, reminds her of family barbecues.
Both foreground Cassimatis’ technical prowess. Same with the tzigerosarmas special, featuring lamb mince, liver and rice wrapped in caul fat and grilled to fatty intensity by Alexis Agathocleous, who works the coals.
Out of the hot box by the kitchen? Cassimatis’ spanakopita, made to his yiayia’s recipe, has epic crunch. Just get in before the heat lamps thicken the crust.
“There’s no reason takeaway food can’t be given the same level of care as anything a fine-diner can offer.”
Service can be rough, but did I mention how busy it’s been? And thanks in part to manager Kelly Chan’s formidable presence, the knowledge around the menu and how to make the most of it has already improved.
The advice: add the loukanika to a meat plate with chicken, pork, onion, parsley and sides of tzatziki and Macedonian potato relish, then build around it: pita for tearing, braised greens, olives and feta for picking, iceberg dressed with whey and salted cucumber juice to keep things fresh.
Bougatsa – more filo, filled with custard – is the move for dessert, landing with a honeyed kumquat as a parting gift.
And don’t forget the chips. Olympic Meats isn’t the only place cutting theirs by hand and cooking them three times, but they are one of the rare establishments frying them in rendered beef fat and dusting them with Nostimini, the cult Mediterranean shaker seasoning. The result is deep golden brown, craggy and savoury, with glass-like crunch that lasts forever. Box them up, sure, but they’ll be gone long before you make it home.
The low-down
Atmosphere: Gyradiko meets open-air taverna spilling on to the street
Go-to dishes: Htapodi xidato – pickled octopus ($19); pork pitogyro with shoulder and belly ($21); loukanika ($13); chips cooked in tallow ($14)
Drinks: Loux brand Greek soda (try the sour cherry), or BYO from The Loose Dozen around the corner
Cost: About $65 for two
Good Food reviews are booked anonymously and paid independently. A restaurant can’t pay for a review or inclusion in the Good Food Guide.
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David Matthews is a food writer and editor, and co-editor of The Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide 2025.
