Papoutsis was born in England,[4] and during his childhood, he split his time between there and Greece. As a teenager he moved to Denmark to find work.[5] Papoutsis worked for the English National Ballet for fifteen years as a production technician.[6] His first experience of cooking burgers for the public was at US festival Burning Man.[7] In 2009, he opened a street food van serving gourmet hamburgers called MEATwagon as a hobby.[6][7] The first truck was vandalised and destroyed, and the second was stolen. This meant that Papoutsis was forced to cook outside on rented equipment in all weathers.[6]
He met Scott Collins in 2010 in a car park in Peckham, South London where the MEATwagon was running. Collins invited Papoutsis to pull up at one of his pubs,[7] and the two would eventually become business partners.[6] In 2011, they opened a pop-up restaurant, #MEATeasy above a pub in New Cross, London on 10 January after having conceived it with Collins on New Years Day.[6][7] It was only after opening this restaurant that he was able to leave his job at the English National Ballet.[6] He opened his first permanent location entitled MEATliquor near Oxford Street on 11 November 2011.[8] MEATmarket at Covent Garden,[6] and MEATmission in Hoxton shortly followed which was then followed by their radio station MEATtransMISSION.com. MEATliquor Brighton opened in September 2013.[7] and MEATliquor Leeds in September 2014. They went on to open MEATliquor Queensway, MEATliquor SW11, MEATliquorED, MEATliquor Croydon, MEATliquor Kings X, MEATliquor Brixton, MEATliquor N1 and MEATliquor Singapore.[3]
Papoutsis was invited to speak on a committee about fast food start-up companies at Downing Street and advised on policy proposals relating to the economic and social benefits afforded by the food and beverage industry.[7] He launched a cookbook with Collins in September 2014, co-written with DBC Pierre entitled The MEATliquor Chronicles.[9] Collins and Papoutsis' research trips to the United States for the cookbook were covered by GQ.[10] He has been described as "a pioneer of street food" by Bloomberg Businessweek.[11] He has collaborated with numerous Michelin starred chefs including Fergus Henderson,[12] Nieves Barragan,[13] Michael O'Hare and Sally Abe[14] and with Gresham Blake on men's suits and performance underwear.[1] He was named in the Evening Standard as one of the 1000 Most Influential People in London in both 2012 & 2013,[15] in January 2015, by Debrett as one of Britain's 500 most influential people[16] and in 2016 he was included in Restaurant magazine's 'Power List' of the 100 most powerful people in the restaurant industry.[17]