Great Teeth Dental Care is a gentle, friendly dental practice on Lambton Quay that has been caring for Wellington's smiles for over thirty years. Small by design — small enough, as the team puts it, to remember your name, your story and your last cup of coffee — the practice pairs a calm, unhurried approach with modern technology and honest pricing.
Patients come for everything from routine check-ups and hygiene care to prompt emergency treatment, same-day CEREC ceramic crowns designed and milled in-house, implants and tooth replacement, SureSmile clear aligners, TMJ and jaw pain relief, and complete smile makeovers. Free cosmetic consultations are available to anyone weighing up their options.
Principal dentist Dr Lakshmi Petikam and lead dentist Dr Stan Litras head a close-knit team that includes dental assistant and receptionist Anais and dental assistant Sowmiya. Care is free for under 18s, Afterpay and Easy Claim are supported, and new patients can start with a half-price exam and clean. Book online, or call — the team answers the phone themselves.
On Lambton Quay, in the middle of Wellington's CBD, Great Teeth Dental Care has been looking after the city's teeth for more than thirty years. It is a practice that has chosen to stay small — small enough, the team likes to say, to remember your name, your story and your last cup of coffee. That choice shapes everything else: a calm, unhurried approach, honest pricing, and modern technology delivered in-house.
The promise is simple. Dentistry should be gentle, affordable and stress-free — whether you're in for a routine check-up, urgent care, or a brighter smile.
Principal dentist Dr Lakshmi Petikam qualified with a Bachelor of Dental Surgery in India and, after moving to New Zealand, completed the New Zealand Dental Registration Examination through the University of Otago in 2003. For two decades since, she has provided high-quality care to patients throughout the greater Wellington region. She is particularly passionate about preventive dentistry and oral health education — helping people maintain healthy smiles through proactive, long-term strategies — and stays current through professional development in preventive care, CEREC and restorative treatment. Away from the surgery she enjoys singing and time with her family.
Lead dentist Dr Stan Litras is a Greek New Zealander who has called Wellington home for most of his life. He attended Clyde Quay School and Wellington College, earned a BSc in Psychology at Victoria University before studying dentistry at Otago, and practised for several years in London before returning to buy his first practice on Tinakori Road in the late nineties. His passions are restorative work, cosmetic dentistry, implants and the precision of same-day CAD/CAM crowns; outside work, family and music. Patients stay a long time here — one, Neal Andrews, has been seeing Stan for around fifteen years and calls him the best of all the dentists he has been to.
They are supported by a small, steady team: Anais, the dental assistant and receptionist who is the first friendly face you'll meet, and Sowmiya, a dental assistant with over a decade of dental experience — including time practising as a dentist — who keeps every treatment room running smoothly.
The practice's headline technology is CEREC same-day crowns. Using a CEREC Primescan digital scanner, ceramic crowns are designed and milled in-house and ready in a single visit — no goopy impressions, no temporaries, no waiting weeks for a lab.
Around that sits a complete range of care delivered in-house. Comprehensive examinations and treatment planning use modern imaging to put you fully in the picture before any work begins. Hygiene appointments cover thorough cleaning, scale and polish, and personalised guidance to prevent gum disease. When problems strike unexpectedly, emergency care aims to relieve pain, stabilise the situation and protect your oral health quickly.
Cosmetically, the team offers bonding, tooth whitening, veneers and crowns — planned at your pace and within your budget, starting with a free cosmetic consultation to walk through what's suitable, how long it takes and what it will cost. Missing teeth can be replaced with implants, bridges or modern dentures, with every option explained clearly, including costs and timing. SureSmile clear aligners straighten teeth with nearly invisible, removable aligners rather than traditional metal braces, and the practice also assesses and treats TMJ and jaw pain — the clicking jaws, grinding and tension headaches that so often go together.
New patients can begin with a half-price exam and clean — a routine examination, standard x-rays and a clean (new patients only; it excludes deep scaling for active gum disease, and there's a booking code on the special offers page). The free cosmetic consultation carries no appointment charge and is open to new and returning patients alike.
There are practical touches, too: dental care is free for under 18s, the practice supports Afterpay and Easy Claim, messages sent through the website receive a reply the same business day, and if you'd rather talk to a person, the team answers the phone themselves. For a CBD dentist, that combination — three decades on the same street, one small team that knows its patients, and same-day crown technology — is a genuinely rare thing.