Jay Rayner

He was awarded the title Beard of the Year for 2011 by the Beard Liberation Front. He plays piano with his jazz ensemble The Jay Rayner Quartet.

In 1997 he won a Sony Radio Award for Papertalk, BBC Radio Five Live's magazine programme about the newspaper business, which he presented. He chairs a BBC Radio 4 programme called The Kitchen Cabinet.

His first novel The Marble Kiss, published in 1994, was shortlisted for the Author's Club First Novel Award and his second, Day of Atonement (1998) was shortlisted for the Jewish Quarterly Prize for Fiction. His first non-fiction book, Stardust Falling, was published in 2002; this was followed by his third novel The Apologist, published in the US as Eating Crow, in 2004.

Rayner worked as a freelance journalist after graduating, writing for newspapers including The Observer and the Independent on Sunday. In 1992 he was named Young Journalist of the Year in the British Press Awards. He worked as a feature writer for The Guardian, The Mail on Sunday, and The Observer before becoming restaurant critic at that newspaper in 1999.

Jason Matthew Rayner (born 14 September 1966) is an English journalist, writer, broadcaster, food critic and jazz musician.

Jason Matthew Rayner was born on 14 September 1966. He is the younger son of Desmond Rayner and journalist Claire Rayner. His family is Jewish. He was brought up in the Sudbury Hill area of Harrow and attended the independent Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School. He went on to study political studies at the University of Leeds, where he was editor of the Leeds Student newspaper, graduating in 1988.