By: Steve Dinneen

I'm the editor of City A.M. The Magazine, and editor of the daily newspaper's Life&Style section. We cover food, going out, art, technology and travel. I like to write about restaurants, theatre and video games.

Review: Rivea by Alain Ducasse at the Bulgari

June 25, 2014

Rivea, Bulgari Hotel, 171 Knightsbridge, SW7 1DW Tel: 0207 151 1025 Food: ★★★★☆ | Value: ★★★☆☆ | Atmosphere: ★★☆☆☆ If you’ve not been to the Bulgari Hotel in Knightsbridge – and unless you’re an oligarch there’s no reason you would have been – you probably have the same preconceptions about it as me. It brings to mind [...]
Fitness challenge: the results after 10 weeks

June 16, 2014

Everything I thought I knew about getting fit was wrong. Go running, avoid fat. Wrong, wrong, according to my trainer. And after my 10 week programme (eleven and a half factoring in holidays), I’m not inclined to argue. The results of my “total body transformation” were more impressive than I’d thought possible three months ago. [...]
Mario Kart 8 is the game that Nintendo’s Wii U needs right now

June 11, 2014

Mario Kart 8 is both joyous and frenetic, nostalgic but packed with twists and innovations. It’s exactly the game Nintendo needs right now, a strong – albeit lonely – argument for investing in a Wii U (an argument that will be considerably strengthened if the Japanese firm can repeat the trick with its upcoming Star [...]
Review: Watch Dogs on Xbox One

June 11, 2014

★★★☆☆ I can’t remember the last game I anticipated quite as fervently as I have Watch Dogs. It's a title that places cyber crime and state surveillance at its heart, making its protagonist’s weapon the connected world; a world it doesn’t take a spectacular mental leap to imagine us all living in. And, for the [...]
Review: Jason Atherton’s City Social at Tower 42

June 4, 2014

I’ve eaten at altitude so many times recently I now have a permanent nosebleed. It’s all over my shirt and my shoes and my food and nobody cares, because the whole of London has the same problem. All anyone in this city does now is eat atop skyscrapers. Like one of Dr Pavlov’s dogs, I [...]
Review: King Lear

February 11, 2014

Sam Mendes’ recent musical production of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory only really gathered pace after the interval. It was as if the director couldn’t be bothered with all the establishing stuff and was just waiting to get inside the wacky psychedelic funhouse that is Wonka’s factory, with all its potential for spectacular set pieces [...]
Is Trader Vic’s the worst restaurant in the world?

November 5, 2013

TRADER VIC’S Hilton Park Lane, 22 Park Lane, W1K 1BETel: 020 7208 4113 FOOD ★☆☆☆☆ VALUE ★☆☆☆☆ ATMOSPHERE ★☆☆☆☆ Cost for two with booze (but no dessert): £126.50 OK, let’s get this out of the way: Trader Vic’s is awful. Terrible food served in a rudderless, soulless venue for prices that should make you weep bitter tears [...]
Review: What Maisie Knew

August 23, 2013

FILM WHAT MAISIE KNEW Cert 12A Four Stars Maisie is six years old and already more emotionally mature than her flaky, dysfunctional parents. Her saucer eyes are wise – and sad – beyond her years. We stumble with her from scene to scene, placed in her shoes, trying to work out exactly what [...]
Review: Mama

February 26, 2013

FILM MAMA Cert 15 *** AFTER producing the deliciously terrifying The Orphanage and directing the superb horror fantasy Pan’s Labyrinth, you would bet your house on Guillermo del Toro nailing what is essentially a stripped down, monster-in-the-house horror movie. This is why I’m not a gambling man. It starts off convincingly enough. The plot – [...]
Review: Money The Game Show

February 26, 2013

In Clare Duffy’s new play, Money The Game Show, two ex-bankers, Queenie and Casino (Lucy Ellinson and Brian Ferguson), explain the financial crisis through a series of audience participation games. Two halves of the audience face each other and in the centre is a platform, complete with cartoon noises and colourful flashing lights that combine [...]

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