Toast the City: Dine in a former bear pit at Libertine at the Royal Exchange August 21, 2025 Our Toast the City Awards are celebrating the City’s top spots and takes place this October. This week: Libertine at the Royal Exchange. The newly-opened Libertine restaurant at the Royal Exchange is allegedly where bears were kept. I was skeptical until the lady behind the bar told me the whole story, then a waiter corroborated it, and [...]
How the Barbican Theatre has rivalled the West End for four decades August 21, 2025 Our Toast the City Awards are celebrating the City’s top spots and takes place this October. This week: the Barbican Theatre. Think of the Barbican Centre and you might picture the lakeside suntrap or Brutalist passageways that feel purposefully designed to get lost in. You might not immediately think of the Barbican Theatre, but here’s why you [...]
The best luxury cars to buy in 2025 August 20, 2025 Comfort, opulence, presence, performance and the latest technology. These are just some of the things we want, no expect, a luxury car to deliver. It should be as good to drive as to be driven in. The luxury car market is changing, however. Once upon a time, a luxury car meant a four-door saloon with [...]
Lunchtime Tourism: London’s amazing Temple of Mithras August 20, 2025 The City of London is one fifth Roman. The Londinium that was founded 2000 years ago lasted just over 400 years, and gave us (amongst other things) London’s first private members’ club, The Temple of Mithras. And it’s still here. The Walbrook Club is one of the City’s most exclusive hangouts but right opposite is [...]
Eat, Drink, Sleep, Repeat: The best London and New York restaurants August 20, 2025 Our Toast the City judge Martin Williams gives his bi-weekly opinion on all things dining. This week he splits his time between London and New York. There has been a good amount of excitement in the hospitality sector as of late, with JKS and Dishoom both heading to America on expansion trails. Last weekend I, [...]
Inside Finsbury Circus Gardens, the City’s biggest green space August 20, 2025 Our Toast the City Awards are celebrating the City’s top spots and takes place this October. This week: the redesigned Finsbury Circus Gardens. If the Square Mile were to be designed today, it would feature a lot more green space. It wasn’t until the middle of the last century that architects realised the importance of nature in [...]
Why Artillery Lane is the City of London’s most charming street August 20, 2025 Our Toast the City Awards are celebrating the City’s top spots and takes place this October. This week: the bars and restaurants of Artillery Lane and Passage. Broadgate’s skyscrapers are so tall and imposing that it can feel overwhelming casting your eye upwards. Head from here into the bowels of Victorian London by way of Artillery Lane, [...]
Port Ellen cheers 200th year with Distillers One of One donation August 20, 2025 Last year, after four decades of closure, the iconic Port Ellen distillery reopened its doors just in time for its 200th anniversary. And to celebrate, the distillery has donated a one-of-a-kind bottle to the Distillers One of One auction. The Islay distillery closed in the 1980s, one of many victims of a crash that decimated [...]
Fenomeno! New Lamborghini V12 hypercar revealed in California August 19, 2025 A new limited-edition Lamborghini has taken a bow at Monterey Car Week in California – with a ferocious V12 engine proudly at its heart. Named the Fenomeno, the hybrid hypercar showcases the Italian marque’s future design language, and scales new heights of performance. The Fenomeno also celebrates the 20th anniversary of Lamborghini’s in-house Centro Stile [...]
We Out Here festival review: Dorset isn’t supposed to be this cool August 19, 2025 We Out Here festival programmes a line-up of jazz-inflected music. Its diversity is exciting, says Adam Bloodworth Over fifty festivals have shuttered in the past year. Shockingly, turning a patch of rural grass into a temporary metropolis for the weekend doesn’t chime well with the cost of living crisis. For a midsize event, upfront fees [...]