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.