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Jay Rayner

@jayrayner1.bsky.social

99 Following57k Followers

Eats and writes for The Financial Times. Piano for the JR Sextet; chairs Kitchen Cabinet for R4. Doesn’t accept comps. [email protected]

https://linktr.ee/jayrayner1

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@jayrayner1.bsky.socialOct 12, 2026, 9:15 AM

Bless you for that.

@jayrayner1.bsky.socialOct 12, 2026, 9:15 AM

You're very kind to say so. Right obviously, but also kind. And yes, it's a terrific paper. I feel lucky.

@jayrayner1.bsky.socialOct 12, 2026, 8:58 AM

Two years ago I had cause to consider doing this. I concluded the real challenge was maintaining the audience and hence the income; that you might do fine to kick off but after a while the returns for effort would literally be diminishing. But Marina is, I think, far better set to make this work.

@jayrayner1.bsky.socialOct 11, 2026, 12:22 PM

Fair enough. But you might like to try picking up a print copy of Weekend Ft one saturday. You really might be surprised at what you find.

@jayrayner1.bsky.socialOct 10, 2026, 10:01 AM

yes

@jayrayner1.bsky.socialOct 10, 2026, 7:34 AM

For today’s @ftweekend.com I am at the restaurant inside the high end Mayfair furniture shop RH London. And it’s chaos. Warm water. Can’t mix cocktails. Run out of hamburgers. Dull food for bored oligarchs who don’t eat. Have a few quotes and a pic of a £22 baked potato.

www.ft.com/content/5993...

Drift through its rooms admiring the oversized sculptures, the overstuffed seating and the passive-aggressive war on colour. I was tempted to give myself a quick nosebleed just to introduce a splash of red. While there, do take a look inside the utterly magnificent restaurant at the back of the ground floor, housed in what was once a banking hall. The cathedral-high ceilings are coated in gold leaf and dangle with giant golden chandeliers like crystal udders. There are pillars, acres of polished wood veneer and lots of soft curved seating, picked out by pools of light from dainty table lamps. Gawp at it. Gasp at it. But whatever you do, don’t book a table in it. On my recent visit, the whole operation was a bloody shambles.It starts in the second-floor cocktail bar, designed by Anouska Hempel, where the £16 Margarita comes from a bottle of pre-mix with a hand-scribbled label, and they can’t make any classic cocktails which aren’t on the list. Ask them for a Daiquiri then watch the panic flicker in their eyes. Online, the cheapest bottle of wine offered up here is a Riesling at £68. When you arrive, it turns out to be £86.Back downstairs in the restaurant a bottle of sparkling water is brought. It’s warm. We ask for ice. None comes. We ask again. None comes. Third time’s a charm. At least we get water quickly; the wait for food is interminable (if you don’t count the £56-worth of mini lobster rolls we didn’t order, that they tried to foist on us). We watch one of our dishes being offered to a nearby table. The diners look baffled. The waiter returns to the pass in the open kitchen where a row with the chef appears to ensue. He waves a ticket at her. Finally, 10 minutes later the plate comes to us. In a functioning restaurant you should be able to spot the person in charge immediately. There is no one in charge of this room. It’s chaos.Our missing dish is the cutely named “Parisian petite potato”. I wanted to see what a £22 baked potato was like. Small, is the answer, and topped with the now obligatory caviar. Honestly, there’s so much caviar washing around London at the moment, I’m convinced there’s some bloke with a lock-up in Camberwell who has got hold of a surplus that fell off the back of a knackered old sturgeon. Now he’s pushing it out to W1. Anyway, it’s a baked potato with fish eggs. I’m not sure which bit of it is Parisian but it’s definitely petite, I’ll give it that.
@jayrayner1.bsky.socialOct 8, 2026, 2:46 PM

Do keep an ear out for the Kitchen Cabinet

@jayrayner1.bsky.socialOct 8, 2026, 2:41 PM

After one of our longer breaks (because we did one of our longest unbroken series at the start of the year) the kitchen cabinet is opening its doors for business again. We start in Inverness, then Folkestone and Hebden bridge. tickets at the link below.

www.bbc.co.uk/showsandtour...

@jayrayner1.bsky.socialOct 8, 2026, 2:15 PM

I can't no, so I'll have to make do without the sale.

@jayrayner1.bsky.socialOct 7, 2026, 11:22 AM

It's better than that. I sell tickets, get a split and therefore get paid. The free pizza is just the rider.

@jayrayner1.bsky.socialOct 7, 2026, 9:31 AM

Half a dozen seats have come available for our previously sold out JR Sextet show at Pizza Express Holborn tomorrow night.
www.pizzaexpresslive.com/whats-on/jaz...

@jayrayner1.bsky.socialOct 6, 2026, 4:03 PM

With bullets.

@jayrayner1.bsky.socialOct 6, 2026, 2:35 PM

I’ll have you know I have been inside a high street bank Branch. Just, yknow, not recently.

@jayrayner1.bsky.socialOct 6, 2026, 2:31 PM

He is a) extraordinarily busy and b) not altogether happy about it.

@jayrayner1.bsky.socialOct 5, 2026, 9:22 PM

The stuff of nightmares (for her too, tbf)

@jayrayner1.bsky.socialOct 5, 2026, 9:04 PM

Looking at that list I think declining to have a conversation with the producers was the right call.

@jayrayner1.bsky.socialOct 5, 2026, 11:34 AM

The only way to be there, is to resign the whip.

@jayrayner1.bsky.socialOct 5, 2026, 11:02 AM

My wife says that same.

@jayrayner1.bsky.socialOct 4, 2026, 6:27 PM

I did but still

@jayrayner1.bsky.socialOct 4, 2026, 5:55 PM

Believe me, the timing was just as frustrating for me

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