Rio de Janeiro Nightlife Guide for Sunday, March 29, 2026

MPB · Electronic · Samba

There is a particular weight to being the last act. Paola Lappicy closes not just this evening but an entire month of female-led programming — from Wanda Sá’s bossa nova opening on March 1 through Watusi’s Moulin Rouge autobiography on Friday and Sonja’s blues and soul journey last night, nearly 30 artists have crossed this stage. Lappicy ends the month with endings: her second album is a sustained meditation on things that are over. Worlds that ended. Relationships that ended. Emotional cycles that closed. The sound is not what you might expect from a concept so heavy — it mixes MPB songwriting with electronic production and samba rhythm in ways that have drawn an 8.5/10 from Pop Fantasma and comparisons to São Paulo’s more adventurous singer-songwriter tradition. The standout track, “Choro no metrô,” places the listener on a city bus at rush hour, weeping — the lyric references Consolação station, the melody echoes Ivan Lins, the beat is electronic samba. Lappicy is a pianist who trained in Brasília and her first album, “Choro Fácil” (2023), was a largely piano-driven ten-track collection. Tonight she performs both albums in an intimate setting that merges confession and dramaturgy. The 7 pm Sunday start — earlier than the usual 8 pm — gives the evening a different quality: gentler, more contemplative, suited to the content.

Bossa · Lunch · Oceanfront

Sunday at the Blue Note begins at noon, not at night. The ground-floor restaurant and calçadão terrace open for lunch with a bossa nova trio playing live — the Copacabana oceanfront, the Sunday afternoon light, and the sound of guitar and voice drifting through the room. This is the Blue Note at its most relaxed: families, couples, visitors who want the Copacabana experience with live music but without the nightclub energy. The menu runs through the afternoon. Reservations recommended — Sunday lunch fills, especially on a warm day. The transition from lunch to Paola Lappicy’s show at 7 pm is seamless: the afternoon crowd filters out, the evening audience arrives, and the building shifts from daylight bossa nova to the album-launch intimacy of the main stage upstairs.

Samba · Botequim · Sunday

Sunday at the Beco is the gentler version of Friday and Saturday — 6 pm to 1 am, seven hours instead of eight, and the crowd carries a different energy. The Saturday-night intensity has burned off; what remains is the neighbourhood contingent, the Lapa regulars who treat the Beco as their Sunday living room. The samba de raiz is the same — acoustic, raw, unpolished — but the volume is lower, the pace slower, the alleyway on Rua Joaquim Silva less crowded. On a Sunday when Rio Scenarium and Carioca da Gema are both closed, the Beco is Lapa’s only samba anchor. No cover. Cash or PIX at the bar. The natural Sunday pairing: Blue Note for the Paola Lappicy show at 7, then metro to Lapa for the Beco’s 9 pm set.

Kitchen · Lapa · Since 1903

Nova Capela is open daily — including Sunday, when most of Lapa’s music venues are closed. On a Sunday evening the restaurant on Mem de Sá operates in its quietest mode: the cabrito assado is the same, the cold beer is the same, but the crowd is local and sparse and the room feels like what it has been since 1903 — a neighbourhood institution that outlives every trend. The pairing with the Beco do Rato across the street is natural: samba at the Beco, food at the Capela, the Sunday wind-down in the oldest part of Lapa.

Boardwalk · Kiosks · Free

Sunday on the Copacabana calçadão is when the boardwalk operates at its most civilised. The kiosks between Blue Note and Leme are open. The late-afternoon light on the water is the best of the week — Sunday sun, 28 °C, 15 % rain chance, the sky mostly clear. The walk south from the Blue Note after the lunch bossa nova session, or before Paola Lappicy’s 7 pm show, is the finest warm-weather stroll in Rio. Bip Bip — five minutes south on R. Almirante Gonçalves — may have a Sunday session: check day-of, as always. The boardwalk is the bridge between the Blue Note’s afternoon and evening programmes, and on a clear Sunday it needs no venue to compete with.

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