Downstairs is a wine bar on New Regent Street in Christchurch Central, rated 4.7 from 89 reviews. The intimate venue opens from 14:00 to late daily except Monday, offering dinner, drinks, and bookings in a tucked-away location.
A wine bar succeeds when it balances hospitality with genuine knowledge—staff who taste what they recommend, not just memorise descriptions. Small-plate dining and wine work together because portion control lets customers drink without overcommitting to food, and sharing encourages conversation. The best wine bars curate their list tightly rather than list endlessly; regulars develop trust in the selection. The challenge is consistency: one night the service flows, the next night delays compound through the evening. Ambience matters more in wine bars than in restaurants—the kind of place where you want to stay, not just eat and leave.
Downstairs serves Christchurch as a neighbourhood wine bar with a distinctive, carefully chosen menu.
New Regent Street in Christchurch Central is home to a pair of venues that present themselves together: Twenty Seven Steps at number 16, and Downstairs at number 22. They appear side by side on a single website, each with its own logo and page, they list the same phone number — 03 366 2727 — and they take reservations through the same online booking link. Downstairs is, in effect, the second listing in a small family of venues, with its own email address, its own weekly hours and its own identity on the page.
The site makes the connection between the two easy to trace. Both listings carry the 03 366 2727 number, and a single Book Now button on the shared site routes diners to one online reservation system. Where the venues part ways is in their inboxes and their clocks. Twenty Seven Steps can be reached at [email protected]; Downstairs uses [email protected]. And their service windows differ too: Twenty Seven Steps opens seven days a week from 5pm, while Downstairs begins its week on Tuesday.
Downstairs opens Tuesday through Saturday from 4pm, and from 2pm on Sundays. There is no Monday service, and the venue closes on all public holidays — a policy the site states plainly for both of its listings. In practice that shapes the kinds of visits Downstairs suits: an after-work or early-evening call Tuesday to Saturday, a slightly earlier start on Sunday, and a reminder to check the public-holiday calendar before planning anything on a stat day.
For anyone comparing the two venues on the same street, the contrast is simple: the venue at number 16 runs seven days from 5pm, while Downstairs at number 22 runs six days — Tuesday to Sunday — and starts earlier, at 4pm on weekdays and Saturdays and 2pm on Sunday.
Reservations are handled through the Book Now link on the website, which connects to an online booking page for the venue. Anyone preferring to talk to a person can call 03 366 2727, the number both New Regent Street listings share, and general enquiries can go by email to [email protected].
The website carries no menu for either venue — the page is deliberately spare, functioning as a directory of the two addresses, their hours and their contact details. Anyone who wants to see what's currently on offer should get in touch with the venue directly before arriving. Likewise, no pricing, parking or accessibility details are published on the page, so those are best confirmed with the venue itself.
What the page does make clear is enough to plan around: the street address at 22 New Regent Street, Christchurch Central; the six-day week beginning Tuesday; the 4pm weekday and Saturday openings; the earlier 2pm Sunday start; the blanket closure on public holidays; and the shared phone line and booking system that tie it to its neighbour at number 16. For a venue that says little, those few facts do a lot of work — they tell you when you can come, how to secure a table, and how Downstairs fits alongside the better-known listing it shares a street, a phone number and a website with.