Rita is a restaurant at 89 Aro St, Wellington, built around a distinctive concept: a single, nightly-changing three-course menu with no à la carte choice. As the restaurant puts it, "We decide what's for dinner, so you can settle in and concentrate on having a good time," using the best local and seasonal produce available each day.
A vegetarian version of the nightly menu is always offered alongside the standard menu, sharing the same starter and dessert with a different vegetarian main. The restaurant's branding leans into Wellington's local history, featuring archival photography of the Aro Valley and Boston Terrace from the 1970s.
Rita has announced that it will serve its last meals on 12 December this year, after which the team plans to open a new venture, Super Rita, in early 2027. The restaurant has expressed gratitude to its customers and invited them to visit before the closing date.
Rita, on Aro St in Wellington, has built its identity around a simple but distinctive idea: there's no menu to choose from. Instead, the restaurant serves a single three-course dinner each night, built around whatever local and seasonal produce is best that day. As the team describes it on their site, "We decide what's for dinner, so you can settle in and concentrate on having a good time."
Each night, Rita puts together a new three-course menu — a starter, a main, and a dessert — with a vegetarian version served alongside it. Both versions typically share the same starter and dessert, with the main course adjusted for vegetarian diners. On one recent night, for example, the menu opened with figs, mozzarella, radicchio, fennel and hazelnut, followed by either a lamb shoulder tagine with quince, grilled carrots and zhoug, or a vegetarian main of roasted pumpkin with pumpkin seed mole, lime crema and zucchini pickle, before finishing with a passionfruit meringue tart and coconut gelato. It's worth noting these dishes are illustrative of the format rather than a fixed menu — since the whole concept is that the menu changes night to night depending on what's freshest.
Rita's branding draws on Wellington's local history, using archival photography from the 1970s — including a shot of Boston Terrace in Wellington circa 1974 (used with kind permission from photographer Ans Westra) and a photo of 89 Aro St itself circa 1976, taken by Charles Fearnley and sourced via Wellington City Recollect. It's a detail that ties the restaurant's identity to the neighbourhood it sits in, reinforcing the sense of "welcome to our house" that the menu page opens with.
Rita has announced that it will serve its last meals on 12 December this year. After that, the team behind Rita plans to open a new venture called Super Rita in early 2027. The restaurant's announcement strikes a grateful tone, thanking customers for their support over the years and inviting them to visit before the doors close for good under the Rita name.
Given the single-seating, chef's-choice format and the restaurant's limited remaining time under its current name, booking ahead is worthwhile for anyone wanting to experience Rita before 12 December. Reservations can be made through the restaurant's booking page, and diners can follow along with nightly menu previews and updates via Instagram.
Rita is located at 89 Aro St, Wellington, and can be reached by phone or email for bookings and enquiries. For diners who enjoy relinquishing the decision-making to the kitchen and trusting a menu built entirely around what's good that day, Rita offers one of Wellington's more distinctive dining formats — and, with its final months underway, one last chance to experience it before Super Rita takes its place.