Jay Rayner is an award-winning writer, journalist broadcaster and musician. He has written on everything from crime and politics, through cinema and theatre to the visual arts, but is best known as a restaurant critic. As well as being a former Young Journalist of the Year and Restaurant Critic of the Year, in 2023 he was named Critic of the Year in the UK Press Awards for his work in The Observer. He has published four novels and eight works of non-fiction, the most recent of which is Nights Out At Home, his cookbook celebrating his 25 years reviewing restaurants, which was an instant Sunday Times bestseller.  He chair’s BBC Radio 4’s The Kitchen Cabinet, is a regular on British television, where he is familiar as a judge on MasterChef and from 2019 until 2022 was the host of Out To Lunch, the hit podcast in which he interviewed the likes of Mel C, Richard E. Grant, Guy Garvey and Dita Von Teese over a fabulous meal. Jay regularly performs live, both in his one man shows and as the pianist in his jazz sextet.