This paper arises from personal experience of living in Wellington for nearly 20 years, in Newtown, an inner-city suburb with many migrant families, was easy; the Greek culinary influence on Wellington’s food suppliers, cafés and restaurants. As a secondary teacher, some of my students were the daughters of fish and chip shop owners, a few of whom, in Newtown, proudly sold jars of stuffed vine leaves and tins of olives. There were a few Greek restaurants in the 1980’s when I lived there, but my research opened up a new awareness of how significant this influence had been.