Jay Rayner is an award-winning writer, musician, journalist and broadcaster. He is best known as restaurant critic, a job he did for the Observer from 1999 until 2025, and which he now continues for the Financial Times. As well as being a former Young Journalist of the Year and Restaurant Critic of the Year, in 2023 and again in 2025 he was named Critic of the Year in the UK Press Awards. He was also shortlisted for Cookery Writer of the Year at the 2026 Fortnum & Mason Food and Drink Awards. Jay has published four novels and nine works of non-fiction, the most recent of which is Nights Out At Home, his first cookbook marking his 25 years as a restaurant critic which was a Sunday Times bestseller. He chairs BBC Radio 4's The Kitchen Cabinet, and is a familiar judge on MasterChef. Jay regularly performs live, both in his one man shows and as the pianist in his jazz sextet. Nights Out in the Kitchen is his second cookbook.