Best of 2025: Mass hallucinations – how I caught an AI reporter December 26, 2025 As we tick off the final days of 2025, we’re rounding up some of our favourite features of the year. Here we present City AM Life&Style Editor Steve Dinneen’s award-nominated tale about the threat AI poses to journalism. The ‘customer’ in the fried chicken shop didn’t touch his meal. Instead, he photographed the kitchen door’s [...]
Eating Dave’s Hot Chicken Reaper Tenders – the best of 2025 December 19, 2025 As Dave’s Hot Chicken opens its second branch in Croydon, we revisit this feature in which magazine editor Steve Dinneen attempts to break a UK record for eating the world’s hottest chicken tenders… It did not end well. I feel lightheaded, short of breath and the room has started to spin. Intense waves of heat radiate [...]
Business rates overhaul to hit Square Mile hotels as row continues December 18, 2025 Hotels in the Square Mile are set to be among the hardest-hit by the property revaluations which have sparked a clash between the hospitality sector and the government. The business rates overhaul, introduced in the November Budget, will see the property values that determine this tax more than double across leading hotels in the City [...]
Subsidised jobs won’t fix youth unemployment December 16, 2025 The young do not need moral lectures. They need chances. And chances come from businesses that are free to hire, free to experiment and free to take risks, not from the state, says Matthew Bowles Last weekend, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Pat McFadden, announced on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg [...]
Angler restaurant review: City staple feels both humble and flamboyant December 15, 2025 Win a chef’s table for 8 at Angler through our City Winners platform – click here to find out more! There’s long persisted a rumour that people in the Square Mile aren’t short of a dime or two. So it is strange that our local parish doesn’t have more Michelin starred restaurants. There used to [...]
Jamie Oliver ‘cutting jobs’ ahead of restaurant chain’s return December 12, 2025 A part of Jamie Oliver’s business empire has cut a firth of its workforce, according to reports, as the celebrity chef plans a return to the high street next year. Jamie Oliver Group has shed 25 of its 126 employees through a redundancy round, Sky News has reported. City AM has contacted the group for [...]
Private members’ clubs are the new face of London heritage December 12, 2025 Private members’ clubs have evolved from exclusive retreats for the elite has evolved into a defining force behind one of the most dynamic investment trends in London’s hospitality market: the rise of the club-hotel hybrid, says Daniel Kyriakides London has always excelled at reinventing its own traditions and nowhere is that clearer than in the [...]
Janine Hirt: Brits network differently to Americans December 11, 2025 Each week, we dig into the memory bank of the City’s great and good. Today, Janine Hirt, CEO of Innovate Finance takes us through her career in Square Mile and Me What was your first job? I held down several odd jobs while working my way through university, including being a librarian, legal assistant, and a [...]
Leon to close sites and cut jobs as it enters administration December 10, 2025 Fast-food chain Leon is set to enter administration, close a number of locations and cut jobs as part of a bid by its new owner to turn around the struggling chain. The company was bought back by co-founder John Vincent last month from Asda in a deal reported to be between £30m and £50m, well [...]
Covent Garden welcomes Guinness brewery December 10, 2025 Guinness has opened its fifth brand home in the heart of London as it hopes to capitalise on the growing popularity of the ubiquitous Irish stout. The mammoth £73m project in the middle of Covent Garden, which has taken six years to go from inception to completion, will see brewing return to the area for [...]