KARACHI: On Karachi’s busy Zaibunnisa Street, amid traffic fumes, tangled utility wires and the fading grandeur of the city’s old commercial quarter, a 19th-century colonial building that once housed a British-era insurance company has found an unlikely second life as a restaurant.
With its stone arches, mosaic floors and ornate balconies, the Ideal Life Assurance Building stands as a reminder of Karachi’s past as one of the British Empire’s most important port cities in South Asia, when merchants, insurers and shipping firms built grand European-style structures across what is now the city’s Saddar neighborhood.
Many of those buildings today are crumbling under decades of neglect, encroachments and rapid urban expansion. But the former insurance office, inaugurated in 1892 and once known as ILACO House, has recently drawn new attention after part of its ground floor was converted into a restaurant, the KBC Courtyard.
Originally built as the headquarters of the Indian Life Assurance Company, the property later became known as the Ideal Life Assurance Company Building after the partition of British India and the creation of Pakistan in 1947. The building eventually came under the ownership of the State Life Insurance Corporation of Pakistan in 1972 following the nationalization of the insurance sector.
“A portion of the ground floor premises, roughly 3,549 square feet, was rented to KBC in November 2025 for a period of one year as part of State Life’s regular commercial tenancy arrangements for retail spaces within the building,” Abdul Shakoor Shaikh, executive director of real estate at the State Life Insurance Corporation of Pakistan, told Arab News.
The restaurant now occupying the space belongs to local businessman Khurram Sher Zaman, who said the decision to relocate there was driven less by commerce and more by a desire to preserve a piece of Karachi’s architectural history.
“I have always admired heritage buildings,” Zaman said, adding that he wanted to “contribute to the city” by preserving the structure.
“It is one of the most beautiful historical buildings in Karachi. It is very beautiful.”
“THIS ONE HAS A BACKSTORY“
Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city and financial capital, was transformed during British colonial rule into a major trading and administrative center. Saddar, developed in the 19th century as a commercial and military district, became known for its blend of Victorian, Gothic and Indo-European architecture.
Architect and heritage conservationist Yasmeen Lari says Zaibunnisa Street, where the building stands, reflects the “commercial awakening of early Karachi.”
During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, she said, many buildings in the area were designed not by formally trained architects but by local craftsmen who combined European influences with regional construction techniques and materials.
“The result was a spate of hybrid structures, some ornate, others simple but all reflecting the influences brought by the rulers from across the seas, and inspired by the impressive edifices built by the ruling elite,” Lari said.
“Thus evolved the imperial-vernacular architecture... Many such buildings were built in the Saddar Bazaar quarter alone, together constituting a group of architecturally significant buildings.”
For Zaman, traces of that history revealed themselves gradually during the renovation process.
“If you look at the floor, it has mosaic on it,” he said. “There were tiles on it (mosaic). When we tried to remove old tiles and place new ones, we saw mosaic beneath. It took us three runs of polish to bring the mosaic to its original shape... Even the pictures you see on the walls represent the old Karachi.”
He said workers also stripped layers of cement from the walls to expose the building’s original stonework.
“We scraped the walls and removed all the cement on them so that the original stones are visible,” he said. “Then we strengthened them.”
Today, the building remains an active commercial property with multiple tenants, while the restaurant has turned the historic site into an attraction for photographers, social media bloggers and couples seeking wedding shoot locations.
“Ever since I opened the restaurant, bloggers and other people are coming in for photography,” Zaman said. “Even brides have been approaching us for wedding shoot queries. So the location has become my USP.”
For customers like Hania Shahbaz, the appeal lies not just in the food but in the sense of stepping into another era of Karachi’s history.
“The arches here, the design of the floor and the balconies here are not what we see now. So, these elements hit you,” she told Arab News.
“Honestly, it’s a new experience for me. Usually there are cafes in Karachi but this one has a backstory to it. This is our history. This is our legacy.”
