Copacabana Palace restaurant Lumio seats 38 from November
Nello Cassese, who won a Michelin star at the hotel's Cipriani, moves to a single tasting menu of southern Italian cooking and Brazilian produce, with bookings due to open in October.
Lumio, the new Copacabana Palace restaurant in Rio de Janeiro, will open in November with a single tasting menu and room for 38 guests a night. It is led by Nello Cassese, the Naples-born chef who has run the hotel's Italian kitchen since 2016.
The Belmond hotel on Avenida Atlântica announced the project last week. Lumio takes over from Ristorante Hotel Cipriani, the Italian dining room that had been part of the hotel for more than three decades, according to the travel site Melhores Destinos. The new room sits in the Pool Building, the renovated wing around the swimming pool that also houses Bar do Copa, MEE and Pérgula, Time Out Rio de Janeiro reported.
What the Copacabana Palace restaurant will serve
Thirty-eight seats and one menu: the hotel is betting on scarcity, not on a famous name.
There will be no à la carte. Every guest gets the same tasting menu, built on southern Italian cooking with Naples as its reference point, Mediterranean technique and Brazilian ingredients. The cellar holds more than 400 labels chosen by head sommelier Ed Arruda, with three pairing options. A Dom Pérignon Chef's Table completes the room; Cassese is the only chef in South America who belongs to the Dom Pérignon Society, according to the hotel.
"For a long time, my mission was to present Italy in Rio de Janeiro," Cassese said in the hotel's announcement. He added that he still does, but that the story has grown larger. The hotel pitches it as a bridge between two cities shaped by light, the sea and the table.
Neither the price nor the exact opening date has been published. Reservations open in October, Melhores Destinos reported. With 38 covers and one menu, every seat counts; see what a tasting menu actually costs to put on a table.
From a Cipriani star to a Naples and Rio menu
Cassese arrived at the Copacabana Palace in 2016 to lead Cipriani. Under him the restaurant earned a Michelin star and entered Latin America's 50 Best Restaurants. The Italian ranking 50 Top Italy named it the best Italian restaurant in the world outside Italy in 2025 and 2026, and named Cassese chef of the year in 2026, MIPYMAG reported.
Those distinctions were awarded to Cipriani, not to the chef, so Lumio will have to earn its own. The hotel is keeping the cook and changing the format: fewer seats, one menu and a name of its own.
The calendar gives the opening an audience. The World's 50 Best Restaurants holds its 2026 ceremony in Lima on 4 November, the first time the awards travel to South America, in the same month Lumio is due to serve its first menu.
