mee restaurant

When the Copacabana Palace transformed its iconic Bar do Copa into MEE, a contemporary Pan-Asian restaurant, LD Studio was invited back to redesign the lighting. Having created the original lighting scheme in 2008, our challenge was to reinvent the experience without erasing its essence.

The restaurant is organized into a series of distinct dining areas defined by the existing columns of the hotel’s historic building, and lighting became the key element in shaping the identity of each space. Linear LED profiles concealed within ceiling coves softly illuminate the natural fabric drapery, while halogen spotlights with carefully varied beam angles create intimate pools of light within the booths. Custom refinements were also developed so that the restaurant’s signature translucent spheres would capture and diffuse light in a uniquely expressive way.

Working with a deliberately restrained palette of luminaires, LD Studio created a highly sophisticated lighting composition in which every fixture was individually calibrated. The result is the warm, meticulously crafted atmosphere that defines MEE today, lighting so seamlessly integrated that it feels inseparable from the architecture itself.