This week's lunch with the FT is Tom Hollandander. Not Spiderman. Or the historian. The one of Rev and the Night Manager. That one. And it's a really good read. Includes references to noisily masticating bread. www.ft.com/content/2a02...

If you're coming to the Aldeburgh Food And Drink Festival this weekend why not pop along to my Nights Out At Home show in the Britten Pears studio at Snape Maltings. 3pm Saturday. www.brittenpearsarts.org/events/jay-r...

For today’s @ftweekend.com I went to the Burgh Island Hotel, a great art deco landmark, lured in by the promise of a new chef. It was sad and disappointing in so many ways. on.ft.com/4gu382Y Doesn’t this grande dame of a hotel deserve better? — Jay Rayner reviews The Nettlefold at Burgh Island

And so to the third (and final) instalment of my journey round classics for @ftweekend.com and the @financialtimes.com. This time it’s three classic pubs with great food, namely the Guinea Grill, the Blue Stoops and the Barley Mow. You want something cutting edge? You won’t find it here.

There are two sorts of hotels. Those with plugs next to the bed. And all the other crap ones.

All journalists should bend the knee to the work of the obituarist, the one discipline which enables the practitioner to get a byline from beyond the grave. Ronald Bergen predeceased his subject Robert Redford by 5 years, but left behind a truly masterful obit. www.theguardian.com/film/2025/se...

So @dranniegray.bsky.social what do we think? Mirabelles?

For this week’s @ftweekend.com restaurant review I went to Apna Punjab in Southall, a modest looking restaurant beloved of Bollywood film sets in the UK, where they serve terrific kulchas and mixed grills. on.ft.com/3KjjgIw

Last week for @ftweekend.com and @financialtimes.com I took you on a tour of three classic bars. This week: three classic restaurants, namely Rules, Quo Vadis and Bentleys. You want edgy? You’ve come to the wrong place. And to access my FT reviews head to the LinkTree in bio.

While the September JR Sextet show with @pizzaexpressuk.bsky.social Dean Street is now sold out, our October, November and December shows are now on sale. www.pizzaexpresslive.com/whats-on/jaz...

That very clever @jderrfuss.bsky.social, who created the map of my reviews in my Linktree (in bio) has now developed a page tracking new hospitality openings across Nottingham. @mhairim.bsky.social this one is for you.

When the boss is cross that THIS was the review you took her on.

Behold the mission statement for Mr Porter. Is the restaurant a merciless lover? Does it investigate the border between dinner and sinner? I reviewed on behalf of @ftweekend.com and the answer is no, it’s just a dreary international steakhouse. Enjoy, because I didn’t. on.ft.com/4gayNq5

Fancy a fancy drink? Then come with me as I take you on a tour of three classic London hotel bars for @ftweekend.com and @financialtimes.com, part a new series. You want edgy? You want hip? You’ve come to the wrong place. I’m bringing you classy and seriously bloody comfortable.

Next week we're recording one of our occasional post bag editions of the Kitchen Cabinet and we need your questions: new ideas with old ingredients, menus for special occasions, reassurance that you're not alone in your obsessions. That and more. Email us [email protected]

A TKC listener gets in touch re our section on old cookbooks from the 80s. This delight comes their copy of the Woman’s Own cookbook, circa 1964. Simpler times.

For today’s @ftweekend.com I’m at Baccala, a small but perfectly formed Italian seafood restaurant, with a terrific wine offering. I think you can sense: I loved it. on.ft.com/45WynyV

TONIGHT I set the challenge on @masterchefuk: they have to make me a wrap. It could be a taco or a spring roll, a gyros or a burrito or blintz. But whatever it is they have to make the wrapping as well as the contents. 8.30pm BBC1 or on iplayer now.

Mean looks in restaurants, you say?

It’s time to get out this be ropey old graphic to announce that the new series of the Kitchen Cabinet begins today on BBC Radio 4 at 10.30am. We’re in Southampton discussing cruise ship food, pears and much else besides.

For today’s @ftweekend.com I’m at Mary Ellen McTague’s lovely pip in Salford, with Guy Garvey of Elbow. We talk about learning to be comfortable in restaurants, he impersonates Dame Diana Rigg, and we eat sticky Lancashire Hot Pot, roast meat sandwiches and treacle tart. on.ft.com/4mxg22x

34 years ago I went to Sheffield to report on a ‘rave’ church called the Nine O’clock Service. I tried to keep an atheist’s open mind, but still found it v disconcerting.Yesterday church leader Chris Brain, was found guilty of indecently assaulting 17 women congregants www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

It’s the cat days of August.

48 continuous hours of play later

One of the people I’m on holiday with has introduced me to timeguessr and that’s my life over.

Have a couple of dessert pics. The first is a cheesecake.

Elsewhere in today’s @ftweekend.com we have a spiffing salad supplement in which I set out to save the dreary British salad from itself. on.ft.com/4mlVcDb

For this week’s @ftweekend.com I’m at Mareida, a new restaurant celebrating the food of the Andean South. I swoon over the desserts, enjoy a couple of other dishes but end up worrying whether that’s enough given London’s shorts attention span. on.ft.com/47i0paz

When they reopened after Covid, 11 Madison in Mew York announced they were going completely vegan. Now they’re going to be a little less vegan. That duck is back on the menu. It’s about inclusivity apparently. And yknow, money. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/13/d...

I think it’s only fair to give you a sense of the salad I’m whinging about.

For the week’s @ftweekend.com I am at Myrtos, a plush new Greek restaurant in South Ken, celebrating great Greek classics while bemoaning an engineered Greek salad that didn’t benefit from being reengineered. on.ft.com/45Fp5s2

I appeal to many demographics. (No is the answer btw; haven’t smoked since I was 18.)

What's hilarious about this is how far from the 'authentic' recipe the Good Food one isn't. Bar 25g of butter, the inclusion of which in anything always strikes me as a good idea, it's so close as to make no difference. As ever it misses the fact that all recipes are just made up by somebody.

Ever wondered what the deal is with the InsideSuccess kids outside London stations who tell you they are raising money to stop knife crime? I have. Well @jim.londoncentric.media of London Centric has done the leg work, as ever. substack.com/inbox/post/1...

A vital piece from the @alphaville.ft.com team in which journalists do some profound and serious journalism, to find out whether Tesco are charging vat on their birthday cake sandwich. www.ft.com/content/6256...

Oooh, the Beeb has re-posted my Listed Londoner interview by Robert Elms, to BBC Sounds. It's almost ten years old but I'm not sure I'd change any of my choices. www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Bargain time: the kindle edition of Nights Out at Home is just £1.99 today. www.amazon.co.uk/Nights-Out-A...

If you were this restaurateur today, my email address is [email protected]. No promises but it might save you a £2k a month retainer.

For this week’s @ftweekend.com I am back in Edinburgh suggesting a profound self-care regime at Ardfern, courtesy of their bacon and haggis bun, Arbroath Smokie eggs Benedict, and many other great things besides. on.ft.com/3UaftPx

From 2019 - 2022 I presented well over 100 episodes of Out To Lunch: interviews with interesting people in top restaurants. Now the BBC has put a whole load of themmon Sounds so you can listen to them ad free. And they've interviewed me about the mechanics of the show. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/a...

The mighty FT Edit arrives on blue sky. As it says, eight FT stories a day, six days a week. For £4.99 a month. And on Saturdays my column is always one of them. (Which you could ignore if somehow you don’t regard that as the great plus that I do).

There were many wonderful things about the Samara Joy prom, but best of all is the way she and her band genuinely made that barn of a hall feel like an intimate jazz club.

Incomparable is a word used too easily when someone dies but there isn’t anyone else to whom Tom Lehrer, who has died aged 97, could be compared (apart from to say that compared to Lehrer they were rubbish). Iconoclast, wit, verbal Gymnast, terrific musician. RIP. www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvhY...

This is an absolutely lovely feature. Spoiler alert: my choice is the First Picture of You by the Lotus Eaters. What’s yours?

For @ftweekend.com I am being a journalist responding to the hot new thing: the rebirth of cult Thai restaurant Singburi. Delicious food, great vibe, but can a unique restaurant in Leyton still be unique in Shoreditch? on.ft.com/4o4NUoq

An extraordinary artist. An amazing life. And a lovely person to boot. Farewell to the great Cleo Laine. www.theguardian.com/music/2025/j...

Blimey. Yesterday somebody posted a wikipedia entry for a single one of my reviews. (You can probably guess which one). It's a little more detailed than the actual wiki entry for me. And no, I had nothing to do with either, but obviously I'M DELIGHTED. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Ray...

Like so many people here recently, I 'have been verified as an adult'. I regard that as a good start to the day, though I would like to see the evidence for myself.

The Samara Joy Prom tonight was, well, a truly joyous thing. She’s extraordinary. On the telly July 27. (With half time moist eyed enthusing from a man with big hair).

Ahead of the festival I’m in Edinburgh for @ftweekend.com at Moss, a small, intense restaurant using ingredients from close by to make a point which is (mostly) delicious. on.ft.com/4lEEDlz ‘Too beguiling for snark’ — Jay Rayner reviews Moss ahead of the Edinburgh Festival