Ristorante Romano

Terraced two-bay four-storey house, built c.1820, now in use as restaurant with accommodation over, having recent timber shopfront to ground floor. Hipped slate roof partially concealed by parapet with rendered coping having octagonal cast-iron hopper and downpipe to front elevation. Red brick chimneystack to north party wall. Red brick walls laid in Flemish bond. Diminishing gauged brick flat-arch window openings with brick reveals, replacement concrete sills and replacement uPVC windows. Recent timber shopfront with panelled pilasters, capped scroll work corbels and fasciaboard over square-headed door and window openings.

This pleasantly appointed house is an integral component of a long terrace of similarly scaled former residential properties many of which, as in this case, are now in commercial use. Capel Street was laid out by Humphrey Jervis to link the new Essex Bridge (now Grattan Bridge) (1678) to the Great North Road. Originally a fashionable residential street of townhouses it became largely commercialized around 1800. It frames an important vista to the south on axis with City Hall.