For twenty-five years, award-winning restaurant critic Jay Rayner has been uncovering the very best of the nation's eateries - from high end restaurants to high street grills. Now, in a love letter to his favourite culinary institutions, he recreates the dishes that have stolen his heart over the decades - and helps home chefs do the same.

From a cheat's version of the original Ivy's famed crispy duck salad to a DIY Greggs Steak Bake; from New York delis to Whitechapel curry houses, Nights Out at Home tells the stories of the places and the meals that have shaped Jay's career. With the blessing - and often the help - of the chefs themselves, he unpicks the tastes and techniques behind the recipes, for us to conjure up at home.

Funny, moving and deliciously engaging, Nights Out at Home is a celebration of good food and fantastic writing, which belongs on the bedside table as much as the kitchen table.

Autorentext

Jay Rayner is an award-winning writer, musician, journalist and broadcaster. He has written on everything from crime and politics, through cinema and theatre to the visual arts, but 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 has published four novels and eight 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 regular on British television, where he is familiar as a judge on MasterChef. Jay regularly performs live, both in his one man shows and as the pianist in his jazz sextet.