Edwardx · CC BY-SA 4.0

Jay Rayner built his reputation as a restaurant critic for The Observer, becoming known for a bluntness that produced widely shared takedowns, including one of the Paris restaurant Le Cinq. Beyond reviewing, he has written novels, essay collections, and nonfiction, judged cooking competitions including MasterChef — where contestants nicknamed him 'Acid Rayner' — and presented the BBC's The Kitchen Cabinet. In 2012 he founded a jazz band, later expanded into the Jay Rayner Sextet, adding music to a career built on food and words.