…what is Jay Rayner doing as a restaurant critic? We sent Miranda Jessop to find out more ahead of his live show at Camberley Theatre
Bella West Photography – bellawest.co.uk
One of my first jobs was in food and drink public relations, urging cut-throat restaurant reviewers to dine out in our clients’ eateries while at the same time knowing that a dire write-up could potentially ruin them. After all those nail-biting years as a PR executive, I jump at the chance to meet established food critic Jay Rayner as he tells me more about his live show, coming to the Camberley Theatre.
In A Night of Food And Agony, Jay will be combining his two passions of food and music. In the first half, it’s all about his life as a food critic, with anecdotes about his best and worst experiences.
“Although only a fifth of my reviews are negative, these are the ones that people remember. We are all intrigued by bad experiences as they are just so much more compelling.”
“I hate any restaurant where the first thing they say to you is ‘Can I explain the concept of the menu?’. The moment I hear the ‘C’ word, I know we’re in trouble.”
In the second half, the audience will see Jay at the piano as part of his jazz quartet. There’s an hour of music, alongside Jay’s hilarious stories of growing up with his mother, Claire Rayner, the renowned and well-respected sex advice columnist.
“Much of the jazz repertoire deals with food and drink and many of the lyrics actually read like letters to an agony aunt,” laughs Jay.
“I never claim to be the best jazz pianist and no one is going to mistake me for Oscar Peterson, but it is about communicating the love of this music that has been with me all my life and hopefully bringing an audience to it that wouldn’t normally think jazz was for them.”
The quartet’s lead singer, Pat Gordon-Smith, is also Jay’s wife.
“I am always conscious that there could be something excruciating about Jay Rayner going on stage and there’s his wife. So I let the audience hear her sing first before they get anywhere near knowing I’ve been married to her for 25 years. She’s an academic publisher by profession and a semi-pro jazz singer and she’s sort of our secret weapon,” he says proudly.
With his famous mother providing so much material, I am interested to learn more about Jay’s childhood.
“It was only as I was approaching adolescence that I realised the free flow of information about sex was not going on in other people’s houses. My father gave up his job as an actor to become my mother’s agent and it really was a family business. If she wrote a leaflet about the menopause, for example, we would get thousands of letters from people requesting a copy. Someone had to open those letters; it was a brilliant pocket money job! As a 10-year-old knowing the symptoms of the menopause was not so useful but as a 49-year-old, it really comes in handy,” he adds with a twinkle.
Jay puts his love of music down to the fact that his parents took him to so many musicals as a child, but what of his love for food?
“Both my parents grew up in the war and went without and so they were determined that the table would never be empty. My mother wasn’t necessarily the most brilliant chef but she found a way to cook in a manner that suited her working life. We were a noisy Jewish family living in North West London; we were utterly godless and there was no ritual but my mother just loved the table as a place to talk.”
Jay soon followed in his mother’s footsteps: his first job was as a sex columnist for Cosmopolitan. Since then, he has written on everything from crime and politics, cinema and theatre to the visual arts. He’s also written four novels and three works of non-fiction. He currently chairs BBC Radio 4’s The Kitchen Cabinet and is a regular on television as a judge on Masterchef and the resident food expert on The One Show. But it was in 1999 when he became restaurant reviewer of the Observer (a position he still holds) that he found his niche.
“I had always loved restaurants and when the job came my way, I was somewhat startled that it was possible to get paid to do the thing I loved doing most. It’s a subject that is right at the heart of people’s interests but I have to remind everyone that it is still very much a writing job and not an eating job.”
Is there much competition between the top reviewers?
“Yes, there is huge rivalry but it’s not who can get to which restaurant first, it’s who can write the funniest and best piece. I really want people to say, ‘That AA Gill’s alright, but have you read Rayner?’.”
What about cooking and eating for pleasure at home in Brixton with his wife and two sons?
“My other half would describe me as a ‘show cook’ which is probably quite true – a great deal of alpha male cookery involving large pieces of meat and cleavers!”
When eating out locally he has a few firm favourites::
“I love the dumplings and chicken in Mama Lan’s and Tim Anderson’s restaurant Nanban is very good.”
“I’ve eaten everything in my time; you name it, I’ve eaten it. One of my lowest moments was a sausage from one of those stands in Trafalgar Square before the night bus home.”
Remembering my previous career in public relations, I ask Jay if he ever feels guilty about some of the bad reviews.
“No, I think very seriously about what I am doing and recognise there is a responsibility to it.”
To balance things out, Jay will be sharing some terrible reviews of his own work with his audience at the Camberley Theatre.
“One of my novels was described as ‘unreadable and, if it was food in a restaurant, it would be returned to the chef as uneatable’. That was pretty savage but you have to take it on the chin."
Jay Rayner brings A Night of Food and Agony to the Camberley Theatre on April 16
Listen to Jay Rayner's Kitchen Cabinet on BBC iPlayer Radio
