The former Orsini’s Restaurant building, located at 201 Cuba Street, has architectural and historical significance. Constructed at the beginning of the twentieth century, the building was originally used as a dental practice for George Alford Downes and William Stacey Downes. In 1958 it was reopened as Orsini’s, which became a well known and respected fine dining restaurant reflecting the change in hospitality standards due to travel and European influence after World War Two. The building has architectural significance for its English ‘arts and crafts’ style façade, contributing to the architectural and aesthetic heritage values of the Cuba Street Historic Area (List No. 7209).

Te Whanganui-a-Tara/Wellington was first settled by the people of the chief Tara, from whom the area gets its name. From the seventeenth century onwards their descendants, Ngāi Tara, were joined by other tribes including Ngāti Ira, Rangitāne, Ngāti Kahungunu, Ngāti Māmoe, and Ngāi Tahu. The 1820’s and early 1830’s was a period of massive unrest and upheaval attributed to the introduction of European muskets to Aotearoa, causing the migration south of Ngāti Toa and Ngāti Raukawa from the Waikato, and Te Āti Awa, Ngāti Tama, and Ngāti Mutunga from Taranaki. Pākehā settlers began to develop Cuba Street in the 1840’s with the first residence and shop, a drapery, being built in 1845.

In 1901 a building consent was issued for 201 Cuba Street. Involving architects McKay and MacGregor, the building was designed with dental surgery in mind. The interior featured three waiting rooms, a surgery, two workrooms, a chloroform room, a lavatory and a scullery spread over the two floors. The exterior is a small two-storey brick masonry building, notable for its unusual English ‘Arts and Crafts’ asymmetrical street façade and domestic character. A decorative frieze features along the top of the second storey. It is a unique building on Cuba Street as it is set back from the pavement edge and has no veranda, parapet, or shop-front window. By 1936 the building had been converted into a boarding residence and in the 1940s it was renamed the Desmond House Apartments.

The building was later purchased by Valerie and Phillip Littlejohn, who converted it into a restaurant. It opened in October 1958, named Orsini’s after Valerie’s great-grandfather who had immigrated to Wellington from Italy. Orsini’s became renowned for fine dining in Wellington, counting celebrities such as Danny Kaye and Alfred Hitchcock among their guests. Prior to the loosening of liquor laws in the early 1960s, the Littlejohns would allow patrons to bring their own alcohol. Valerie would lock the front door of the restaurant to give her patrons time to hide the evidence in the case of a police raid, which happened frequently. In 1962 Orsini’s was the second restaurant in Wellington to gain a liquor licence, allowing it to flourish further. The restaurant closed in circa 1990 as the Littlejohns had moved to Auckland to open a second Orsini’s. The Littlejohns have continued to be a prominent family in the hospitality industry and in 2008 Valerie was the first woman inducted into the NZ Restaurant Association’s Hall of Fame.

Since the 1990s the building has been occupied by a succession of restaurants. In 1997 alterations were made to convert the arch-headed window into French doors and to add a new door to the centre of the façade to create an outdoor dining area. In 2007 the building was home to Our Bar, an LGBT+ bar and restaurant run by Sharon Boyd and Ruth Post. The bar hosted many events including after parties for women’s rights protests and was a sponsor of Wellington’s lesbian softball club, the Amazons.