Mee

Mee is the pan-Asian restaurant of the Belmond Copacabana Palace — the 1923 Belle Époque luxury hotel facing the Copacabana beach, owned by the Orient-Express/Belmond group since 1989, and the most architecturally significant luxury hotel in South America. The restaurant holds one Michelin star under chef Kazuo Harada and is the most polished hotel-fine-dining experience in Rio.

The cuisine is pan-Asian — Japanese, Thai, Cantonese, Vietnamese — with deep ingredient sourcing from the chef's network. Signatures include the famous 'hamachi tiradito' — Brazilian-Japanese yellowtail with biquinho pepper; a hand-rolled dim-sum platter with Brazilian shrimp; a slow-cooked Thai-style massaman with Bahian goat; a wood-fired Atlantic turbot with Cantonese black-bean glaze; the famous 'matcha cheesecake' that the pastry team has refined since 2014.

The wine list runs to 800 references with serious Champagne and Burgundy verticals, a respectable Brazilian section, and a sake programme that runs to thirty-plus daiginjo and junmai-daiginjo bottlings.

The dining room is the most architecturally elegant in Rio — Belle Époque crystal chandeliers, hand-painted Asian-art panels on the walls, and a glass wall onto the Copacabana beach directly. Service is Belmond-grade.

Mee is the close-a-deal room in Rio — the Copacabana Palace pedigree settles any institutional question, the pan-Asian register works for any client palette, and the Michelin star answers the cooking question.