Jay Rayner

Jay Rayner (born 14 September 1966) is a British journalist, writer, broadcaster, food critic and jazz musician.

Rayner is the younger son of Desmond Rayner and journalist Claire Rayner. His family is Jewish. He was brought up in the Sudbury Hill area of Harrow and attended the independent The Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School. He joined The Observer newspaper after graduating from the University of Leeds in 1988, where he was editor of the student newspaper. As of 2014 he was restaurant critic of The Observer. He has written for a wide range of British newspapers and magazines, including GQ, Esquire, Cosmopolitan, the New Statesman and Granta. In 1992 he was named Young Journalist of the Year in the British Press Awards.

His first novel The Marble Kiss, published in 1994, was shortlisted for the Author's Club First Novel Award and his second, Day of Atonement (1998) was shortlisted for the Jewish Quarterly Prize for Fiction. His first non-fiction book, Stardust Falling, was published in 2002; this was followed by his third novel The Apologist, published in the US as Eating Crow, in 2004.

In 1997 he won a Sony Radio Award for Papertalk, BBC Radio Five Live's magazine programme about the newspaper business, which he presented.

He was one of the panel of critics who made up the titular "enemy" on the daytime cookery show Eating with the Enemy, and performs a similar role on the UK version of MasterChef. His television appearances have earned him the nickname 'Acid Rayner' owing to his sour demeanour. He is the food reporter on the BBC magazine programme The One Show, and was on the panel of judges on the American programme Top Chef Masters.

He chairs a BBC Radio 4 programme called The Kitchen Cabinet, and has appeared on a University Challenge TV quiz Christmas special.

He was awarded the title Beard of the Year for 2011 by the Beard Liberation Front.

He attended Malton Food Festival as a guest star in 2013, along with celebrity chef Antonio Carluccio.

He was to guest-star in series 5 of Hacker Time.

Fiction

• The Marble Kiss (1994), ISBN 0-333-62134-4
• Day of Atonement (1998), ISBN 0-552-99783-8
• The Apologist (2004), ISBN 1-55278-416-9
• The Oyster House Siege (2007), ISBN 1-84354-566-7

Non-fiction

• Star Dust Falling (2002), ISBN 0-552-99908-3
• The Man Who Ate The World (2008), ISBN 0-8050-8669-2

• "Interview with Jay Rayner". digyorkshire.com. 2009-05-27. Retrieved 2009-06-17. 

• Restaurant Critic Of The Year, Glenfiddich Food and Drink Awards (2001)
• Critic Of The Year, British Press Awards (2006)

• Review of The Man Who Ate The World at Letters On Pages