About Us

The Meat Mafia Collective’s Mission is simple

Help people get a better understanding of meat and food and how best to cook it through simple to understand recipes, on line video/tutorial and real word-classes

We Believe in Quality

Meats cooked to perfection – Always

New Zealand Owned and Established 2019

Our Story

I’m Noel Hassapladakis, founder and owner of the Meat Mafia Collective. I’ve always loved cooking and helping others get better at cooking real world meals that delight at the table. I’ve always dreamt about being able to share that knowledge and passion to a wide audience in a way that people can access easily, from the total novice looking to improve their cooking generally right through to the experienced culinary enthusiast looking to level up.  This is why the Meat Mafia Collective was born.


They say that all cooking starts at home and that’s certainly the case for me. I’m lucky to come from a wide range of culinary heritages, boasting Greek, Egyptian, French and Lebanese lineage on my father’s side and Italian, American and Phillipino on my mother’s. Definitely a mouthful and a multi-coloured mix! Some of the greatest food I have ever eaten was cooked by my family and it’s inspired me since I was a boy back in the multi-cultural communities of North East  London.  Mine is a family of foodies who definitely don’t stay in their lane! We constantly try new things, experiment with handed down family recipes working out where we can make them more modern, more flavourful, use new techniques to elevate and make them better.


And the two people that have been the most influential to me? Of course it’s my Mum and Dad.  My Dad, Leon (read his name backwards to see the type of bond we have!), has always been a charcoal master and I’ve been at his side ever since I could see over the souvlaki grill that he’d man most weekends. If you’ve ever been lucky enough to stand that close to a Greek man grilling juicy, tender and fatty skewers of lamb over hot coals with the fat sizzling as it drops and hits the little red / white lumps of hot charcoal and smelling the incredible aromas coming from them you’ll know why I spent so much time with him there!

Taking family holidays visiting family in Greece and spending hours hand turning lambs and pigs on spits over open fires is something I’ll never forget and something I’m passing down to my own children, Leon (see what I did there?) and Zoe. Hopefully they’ll eventually pass this family knowledge down to children of their own…one day!


My Mum, Barbara, with her Italian passion and flavours from the America’s and Philippines brought a completely different aspect to my culinary upbringing. She was a master of turning what could have been boring, repetitive weekday meals into dishes that became new explorations of flavour, taking the Thursday night Spaghetti Bolognese and raising it to something else, something to behold and keep all of us interested, entertained and well fed from her table.  Like many Europeans she was a true feeder. No one who came to our house left hungry, everyone had a place at the table, nothing was ever too much bother, something that has lasted with me and I am guilty of myself all these years later!


Then, in 2016, my life changed and I discovered American style BBQ! This quickly became an addiction and a complete obsession, as I’m sure many of you can understand or know! This smoky, succulent and deceptively tricky to perfect cuisine had me firmly in its grasp.  I entered the world of competitive BBQ, catering, masterclasses and just had to cook it and teach people how to cook it whenever and wherever  I could.


The Meat Mafia Collective is the culmination of my upbringing, everything I learnt from my amazing parents, everything I’ve learnt in BBQ, meat preparation and cooking. It’s all the tips and tricks I’ve picked up by attending classes, holding classes and working with some of the best in the food business. Come join us.

Taking family holidays visiting family in Greece and spending hours hand turning lambs and pigs on spits over open fires is something I’ll never forget and something I’m passing down to my own children, Leon (see what I did there?) and Zoe. Hopefully they’ll eventually pass this family knowledge down to children of their own…one day!


My Mum, Barbara, with her Italian passion and flavours from the America’s and Philippines brought a completely different aspect to my culinary upbringing. She was a master of turning what could have been boring, repetitive weekday meals into dishes that became new explorations of flavour, taking the Thursday night Spaghetti Bolognese and raising it to something else, something to behold and keep all of us interested, entertained and well fed from her table.  Like many Europeans she was a true feeder. No one who came to our house left hungry, everyone had a place at the table, nothing was ever too much bother, something that has lasted with me and I am guilty of myself all these years later!


Then, approximately 6 years ago, my life changed and I discovered American style BBQ! This quickly became an addiction and a complete obsession, as I’m sure many of you can understand or know! This smoky, succulent and deceptively tricky to perfect cuisine had me firmly in its grasp.  I entered the world of competitive BBQ, catering, masterclasses and just had to cook it and teach people how to cook it whenever and wherever  I could.


The Meat Mafia Collective is the culmination of my upbringing, everything I learnt from my amazing parents, everything I’ve learnt in BBQ, meat preparation and cooking. It’s all the tips and tricks I’ve picked up by attending classes, holding classes and working with some of the best in the food business. Come join us.

High Quality Recipes, Expert Tutorials, Real World Classes and lots more….

Our Mission

The Meat Mafia Collective’s Mission is simple: “To help home cooks have the best understanding of meat and cooking to be the hero of their kitchen. All through simple recipes, online tutorials and in-person, real world classes.

If you want to learn how to improve your cooking, be inspired by weekly recipes that are easy to follow, cook American style BBQ, master that perfect crust on a steak, produce pasta that Nonna would approve of or make pizza dough worthy of a Naples wood fired oven, then you’ve just found your spiritual food home

Our Vision

Our Vision is simple:  Create a community of like minded individuals  who are passionate about food and that want to improve their knowledge and cooking skills, by creating engaging, easy to follow digital content that will fast track our members cooking capability.

Our Values

Always Be Real – we’ll always give you our honest thoughts on a product, regardless of our relationship with them. We will give you the same advice we would give to a close friend or family member.  Integrity is everything.

Always Be Helpful – this is a place for learning and development. If you’re not learning (or me for that matter) then we’re not doing things right!

Always be better – just because a recipe or technique’s been done a certain way for hundreds of years, doesn’t mean it can’t be made better. We’re here to help you be better at everything you do; help you tweak family favourites and find new ways to bring joy to others through cooking.

Always have fun – Cooking for us is an escape, an opportunity to have fun and learn!

Our Process

We spend a huge amount of time reasearching the latest methods and trends in the meat world.  We attend Masterclasses, work with farmers to develop new products, develop new recipes and generally do all the hard work.  We make the mistakes so that you don’t have too.

What are people saying about The Collective?

testimonials

“Five Stars!”

Great tips and great page content, the best page worldwide for BBQ!

Tim D

Absolutely everything excellent cooking methods and just all round farkn friendly

Les A

Noel is incredibly passionate about quality bbq. Need to learn some skills? You will be the neighbourhood bbq master in no time at all
Adam W

I had the opportunity to attend the inaugural MMC Masterclass and believe me it did not disappoint. The food was amazing and Noel’s BBQ knowledge and expertise is mind-blowing. As a complete charcoal BBQ novice, the MMC is a great place to get tips, advice, and inspiration. Highly recommended and will definitely be attending another Masterclass
Mikey L

Hey Noel, just wanted to say thanks for the wisdom. Did a small (2.5kg) brisket on NYE. Only my second one; first one was an epic fail, but I found your method and used it for the second one which came out amazing. I really appreciate all the advice and recipes/tips/demos you put up in the group; it’s really helpful for us newbies trying to find our way!  Cheers mate
Tim D

Meat Mafia provides interesting and informative information on food and cooking techniques
Wendy AS

I had the pleasure of having pulled pork butt and pulled beef burgers as well as trying a couple ribs and brisket, they were all outstanding!!! 10/10 and would highly recommend Noel, has has a passion for BBQ and this really shows through his food!
Sian BC

Great collection of knowledge an references
Simon B