Find the perfect gift this Christmas

Nights Out in the Kitchen

More recipes and stories from a restaurant critic's life

In his bestselling Nights Out At Home, Jay Rayner reflected on his quarter-century as a restaurant critic and outed himself as not only a professional eater, but someone with a profound understanding of how the very best meals are crafted. Read on sofas and poured over in kitchens, it offered inspiration and permission to roll up our sleeves and start cooking our favourite restaurant dishes at home.

In Days Out in the Kitchen, readers will discover Jay at ‘Home’, with another 50 cleverly reverse-engineered recipes, taking inspiration from restaurants and chefs across the UK, alongside 25 of his very own recipes, including meatballs with braised spaghetti, whole roasted cauliflower, fritto misto and meringue tumbles. With each dish, we’ll get to peek behind Jay’s kitchen door to discover how he cooks these family favourites and the dynamic mix of restaurants, chefs and cookbooks – as well as Jay’s own creative flair – that inspired them. .

Inspired by his professional eating ‘Away’ from the kitchen, Days out in the Kitchen includes accessible, home-cooked versions of Jay’s most loved meals out, such as St John’s Welsh rarebit, 40 Maltby’s (and his local farmer’s market’s) tartiflette, Claro’s fried brussels sprouts and Maison Francois’s Paris Brest. And in the stead of the legendary Greggs steak bake, there is Morley’s red spareribs.

On every page of this beautifully written and inspiring cookbook (with colour inset illustrations) Jay’s warmth and love of the restaurant industry and of great home cooking spills off the page.

About Jay Rayner

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.
Details
  • Imprint: Fig Tree
  • ISBN: 9780241794517
  • Length: 384 pages
  • Price: £22.00
All editions