Jay Rayner

Journalist, writer, broadcaster and food critic

Jay Rayner is a journalist, writer, broadcaster and food critic. The son of journalist Claire Rayner, he joined The Observer newspaper after graduating from Leeds University in 1988. He is currently restaurant critic of The Observer and has written for a wide range of British newspapers and magazines such as GQ, Esquire, Cosmopolitan, the New Statesman and Granta. His first novel The Marble Kiss (1994) won the Author’s Club First Novel Award and his second Day of Atonement (1998) the Jewish Quarterly Prize for Fiction. His first work of non-fiction Stardust Falling was published in 2002 and was followed by his third novel The Apologist, published in the US as Eating Crow (2004). He is one of the panel of critics who make up the titular "enemy" on the daytime cookery show Eating with the Enemy, and performs a similar role on the UK version of MasterChef. In addition he is the food reporter on the BBC magazine programme The One Show.