Haymarket has always been Sydney’s stomach — the place where workers, migrants, and the city’s restless appetite collided. Before the arches, before the lanterns, it was a sprawl of markets, cookhouses, boarding rooms, European cafés and Chinese vegetable hawkers all feeding the same hungry city.
From the 1870s through to the early 2000s, this pocket of Sydney became a layered map of migrant experience: Chinese gardeners and hawkers; Greek and Czech delis; Italian espresso bars; and the small businesses that stitched these worlds together.
1870s–1920s | Markets, Boarding Houses & Early Chinese Settlement
Haymarket grew out of the old cattle and corn markets as Sydney sprawled southwards. Chinese hawkers and market gardeners — bringing produce from suburban plots — rented rooms and stalls around Campbell, Hay, and Dixon Streets.
European migrants (Italians, Greeks, Eastern Europeans) opened cafés, bakeries, and delis to serve railway workers from nearby Central Station. A loose “Old European Quarter” formed along Pitt and Hay Streets: cheap rooms, long hours, warm kitchens, and the comfort of familiar accents.
1930s–1970s | Café Culture & the Post-War Deli Boom
Post-war migration turned the area into a hub of continental cafés and delis. Cyril’s Delicatessen opened in 1956, run by Czech migrant Cyril Vincenc — a staple for tinned fish, proper pickles, rye bread, strange cured meats, and homesick Europeans.
Chinese traders expanded alongside European ones: tailors, noodle houses, cobblers, herbalists, grocers. For decades, the two communities operated shoulder-to-shoulder, forming an intertwined economic and cultural ecosystem.
This mix created the quiet “Old European Quarter” — Chinatown’s older sibling, mostly forgotten but foundational.
1980s–2003 | Chinatown & Gentrification
In 1980, Sydney City Council built the Dixon Street gates, officially branding the precinct “Chinatown.”
Rising rents and redevelopment pushed many delis and European cafés westward or out entirely. Cyril’s Delicatessen held on until 2015, making it one of the last surviving markers of the earlier European layer.
Heritage listings and oral histories now document both the Chinese and European contributions to Haymarket’s identity.
Key points
- Chinatown’s roots sit in a century of market gardening, hawkers, and migrant small business.
- The “Old European Quarter” coexisted with early Chinese settlement right up until Chinatown branding in the 1980s.
- Cyril’s Delicatessen (1956–2015) is a key surviving trace of Sydney’s mid-century European migrant story.
- Modern heritage work recognises these histories as intertwined, not separate chapters.
Explore online
- City of Sydney — Haymarket Precinct Overview
- Haymarket & Chinatown Revitalisation Strategy
- Dictionary of Sydney — “Cyril’s Delicatessen”
- City of Sydney Oral Histories — Cyril Vincenc (PDF Transcript)
- Dictionary of Sydney — Haymarket Entry
Further reading
Yong Chen & June Tang, Chinatown Sydney: The Making of a Migration and Cultural Zone (UNSW Press)
Ian Tyrrell, Boarding House, Bed & Bath: Migrant Accommodation in Sydney 1945–1975 (Sydney University Press)
Xiaojie Li, Markets of Memory: Asian Food and the Migrant Experience in Sydney (Sydney University Press)