For Asian restaurant Mei Ume, the newest addition to the Four Seasons at Ten Trinity Square, a recent transformation of the 1922 headquarters of the Port of London Authority, Ed Ng and Terence Ngan, founders of Hong Kong-based AB Concept, seamlessly blended East and West influences for a dynamic yet residentially informed dining experience. “As someone who grew up in Hong Kong, a melting pot of Eastern and Western cultures, I found this project particularly interesting as it presented us with the challenge of how to represent this delicately and sensitively,” Ng says.

That starts at the entrance. Between two columns, plum blossoms grow up a panel of glass suspended from two metal screens of portholes seen throughout the restaurant. (Appropriate since the restaurant’s name is a coming together of the Chinese and Japanese words for plum blossom.) Red—which symbolizes luck in Chinese culture—repeats as a bold accent in the main dining room, as well as the space’s main focal point: a crimson lacquer frame that surrounds a three-layer gilded triptych telling the story of a feast in a garden.

Elsewhere, a black, white, and gray palette pervades, especially in the bar area: a line of black metal lanterns hang from a pavilion-inspired structure above the bar; the textured barfront is a modern impression of a traditional Chinese ink painting (which is also used as wall panels); and the floor is covered in an ebony timber and white marble grid pattern. That floor continues in the semiprivate dining room (as does red in the handpainted wall panel with silk embroidery), separated from the bar by a bamboo screen. Meanwhile, to add a sense of scale in the double-height Palladian Grade II-listed space, halo-shaped light fixtures suspend by metal from the original columns—topped with restored moldings and inlaid with a new leafy wallcovering set in a metal lining—creating intimate seating nooks below.