In Nights Out at Home, Jay Rayner’s first cookbook, the award-winning writer and broadcaster gives us delicious, achievable recipes inspired by the restaurant creations that have stolen his heart over the decades, for you to cook in your own kitchen.

With sixty recipes that take their inspiration from restaurants dishes served across the UK and further afield, Nights Out at Home includes a cheat’s version of the Ivy’s famed crispy duck salad, the brown butter and sage flatbreads from Manchester’s Erst, miso-glazed aubergine from Freak Scene and instructions for making the cult tandoori lamb chops from the legendary Tayyabs in London’s Whitechapel; a recipe which has never before been written down.

It also features Jay’s MasterChef Critics-winning baked chocolate pudding with cherries, and his own personal take on the mighty Greggs Steak Bake.

Seasoned with stories from Jay’s life as a restaurant critic, and written with warmth, wit and the blessing, and often help, of the chefs themselves, Nights Out at Home is a celebration of good food and great eating experiences, filled with irresistible dishes to inspire all cooks.

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‘Jay Rayner’s love and profound understanding of food has been channelled into a wonderful book of delicious recipes coupled with intelligent, brilliantly funny writing’ STANLEY TUCCI

‘A fantastic collection of heart warming, full-flavoured recipes from one of Britain’s leading food writers. A must buy for anyone who loves food, restaurants and cooking’ TOM KERRIDGE

‘Jay has a way with words, but he’s also a dab hand in the kitchen. This book is not just a collection of food memories but also of recipes that make you want to roll up your sleeves and start cooking’ MICHEL ROUX

‘With Jay as our guide, Nights Out At Home is a witty, mouth-tingling taste adventure’ ANDI OLIVER

‘A sophisticated palate and a fiery, comic tongue. Jay Rayner’s food writing is brilliant.’ Stanley Tucci

Why are gravy stains on your shirt at the dinner table to be admired?
Does bacon improve everything?
And is gin really the devil’s work?

In this rollicking collection of his hilarious columns, the award-winning writer and Observer restaurant critic Jay Rayner answers these vital questions and many, many more. They are glorious dispatches, seasoned in equal measure with both enthusiasm and bile, from decades at the very frontline of eating.

‘Deliciousness served up in book form.’ Philippa Perry

‘Wonderfully funny, foodie and perfectly short.’ Tom Kerridge

Jay Rayner isn’t just a trifle irritated. He is eye-gougingly, bone-crunchingly, teeth-grindingly angry. And admit it, that’s why you picked up this book, isn’t it?

Because you aren’t really interested in glorious prose poems celebrating the finest dining experiences known to humanity, are you? You want him to suffer abysmal cooking, preferably at eye-watering prices, so you can gorge on the details and luxuriate in vicarious displeasure.

You’re in luck. Revel in Jay’s misfortune as he is subjected to dreadful meat cookery with animals that died in vain, gravies full of casual violence and service that redefines the word ‘incompetent’. He hopes you enjoy reading his reviews of these twenty miserable meals a damn sight more than he didn’t enjoy experiencing them.