This Pacific Ocean country is one of Earth’s most biodiverse places July 10, 2025 This Pacific Ocean hideaway offers incredible sea life in brilliant luxury Anyone for fruit bat stew? “It’s delicious!” the museum guide assured me. “You cook the bat whole and serve it up in a soup, so it gazes up at you from the bowl. And you eat the entire bat. Because its diet is fruit, [...]
Inside Los Angeles stan culture, where it isn’t embarrassing to admit you’re a celebrity nerd July 10, 2025 Fans behave very differently in Los Angeles than they do in London. Longtime celebrity nerd Adam Bloodworth visited to explore the city’s outward love for celebrity A sea of aggressive power lunches are taking place on the terrace next to a swimming pool. I’m in the Tower Bar on Sunset Boulevard, which runs along the [...]
A spoiled travel editor’s guide to luxury hotels July 9, 2025 I know, it’s not en vogue to brag, but as City AM’s travel editor, I stay in the world’s plushest luxury hotels for a living. Here’s the shocking thing: despite the £1k-a-night price tags, they often fail to do the very simplest of things to make your stay better. So, here is some constructive criticism [...]
Lunchtime tourism: Rosetti at Guildhall Art Gallery July 3, 2025 Bob Vylan at Glastonbury 2025 showed how art and entertainment is often explosive in the political and cultural discourse. ‘Twas ever thus. Just take a walk into the Guildhall Art Gallery. Upstairs in the Victorian section you will find La Ghirlandata, Dante Gabriel Rosetti’s self-proclaimed “very best picture,” painted 152 years ago in 1873. Her eyes [...]
Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons: Behind the culinary icon July 2, 2025 During my first visit to Le Manoir I could neither speak nor talk. This is not hyperbole about dumbfounded luxury – I was just a baby. But my parents still tell the story of how Raymond Blanc, in full chef’s whites, came to ask them if I had enjoyed the fresh pasta and butter the [...]
Is Atlantis The Royal ‘The most ultra-luxury resort in the world’? June 27, 2025 The phrase “Disneyland for adults” is thrown around to describe everything from Monaco to Miami, to certain Soho House outposts. At Atlantis The Royal, the 795-key mega-resort on Dubai’s Palm Jumeirah, the comparison actually holds up, except this time Mickey is wearing Balenciaga, and demanding tableside caviar bumps. This isn’t so much a hotel as [...]
Inside the most expensive rehab clinic in the world June 26, 2025 Upon checking in at £10,000-a-night rehab centre Paracelsus Recovery, I find myself transported into a world that revolves entirely around me. Bequeathed with a 15-member entourage of therapists, clinicians, masseuses and personal chefs, I am part of a collective powered by a single goal: my betterment. If you can think of a celebrity who’s been [...]
‘Always say yes to a bag of testicles’: A defence of offal June 26, 2025 Like a character straight out of a Carry On film, the Turkish butcher leaned forward, looked my partner in the eye, and, with a heavy accent and an evil glint, said simply: “Testicles. Testicles.” Then, by way of explanation: “Sheep’s balls.” Though things had taken a surreal and vaguely vulgar turn, his strange sales pitch [...]
Review: Is Porto Zante in Zakynthos the ultimate CEO retreat? June 26, 2025 We have plenty of talented journalists at City AM to tackle foreign travel stories. But we only have one person qualified to discover if Porto Zante is, as claimed, the ultimate CEO retreat. As the only CEO available at the time of writing, the assignment fell to me. So I dusted off my notebook, roped [...]
Eat, drink, sleep, repeat: Foodie delights in Dubai June 25, 2025 Martin Williams is one of the judges for our first Toast the City awards. Here he tells us about his recent trip to the gastronomic paradise of ever-sunny Dubai. The Serpentine Summer Party never disappoints. After a wonderful lunch at Petrus, I found myself enjoying Mujen Sochu Cocktails, created by the bar legend Tato Giovannoni, who [...]