Jay Rayner

Jay Rayner is an English journalist and food critic. After editing the Leeds Student newspaper while at university, he spent time at The Observer, The Independent on Sunday, and The Mail on Sunday before returning to The Observer in 1996. He became a restaurant critic in 1999 and developed a reputation for acerbity in his columns, with several going viral including a takedown of Paris restaurant Le Cinq. Rayner has also been published in Esquire, Granta and Cosmopolitan, the last as a sex columnist. In 2025, he transferred from The Observer to the Financial Times.