Jay Rayner: Nights Out in the Kitchen

See it in Hampstead, before it tours nationally.

Jay Rayner and the fabulous team at Fane are starting their national tour early — and the first stop is Circle & Star, Hampstead.

Jay Rayner brings a work-in-progress one-off to Circle & Star ahead of his national tour.

Marking the publication of his fabulous new cookbook, the restaurant critic, broadcaster and occasional pastry-wrangler brings twenty-five years of appetite to a room of 55 — a couple of hours of intense foodie insight, fabulous dinner ideas, and the occasional dodgy one too.

On the menu — five things up for discussion

★ The secret to a truly great dinner party
★ Whether a critic with a taste for the savage review is, in fact, a bit of a scumbag
★ The single best thing you can have on toast
★ Whether you can — or should — braise spaghetti
★ What a food writer does when ‘crispy’, ‘moist’ and ‘dense’ finally run dry

…alongside many more, as he sets out on tour.

About Jay Rayner

Jay Rayner is one of Britain’s best-known food writers — now restaurant critic for the Financial Times, after twenty-five years reviewing for The Observer. He’s a familiar voice on BBC Radio 4’s The Kitchen Cabinet and the author of a shelfful of books, including the bestselling cookbook Nights Out at Home.

The book — more recipes, more stories

“It’s time to share a little more of my love for home cooking, and the merry dance of appetite and technique that lies behind the dishes I make.”

Following his bestselling Nights Out at Home, Jay returns to the kitchen with recipes sparked by the dishes he’s fallen for over a quarter-century as a restaurant critic — meatballs with braised spaghetti, shaved fennel and lemon-zest salad, tartiflette tart, slow-cooked tandoori lamb shoulder — alongside twenty of his very own, refined at home. There are home-cooked versions of dishes from the chefs who inspired them, a whole section on the joys of good things on toast, and stories that walk both sides of the ‘home’ and ‘away’ line: the problem with dinner parties, the route to a less painful Christmas lunch, and — given all those wretchedly negative reviews — whether Jay might actually be a total scumbag.

Nights Out in the Kitchen is out 3 September 2026 — available at all good bookshops.

Three reasons to be in the room

★ With only 55 seats, everyone gets something close to a front-row experience — intimate, immediate, and part of the story.
★ Yes, there’s air conditioning — which, in this weather, is practically a cultural service.
★ You’ll be among a small, curious community of people who care about live performance, conversation, and the thrill of being in the room.

On tour with Fane. Jay’s national tour is produced by the team at Fane — and we’re proud to give it its opening night, here in a room of 55.

Circle & Star presents a Fane tour with Jay Rayner.

📅 Tuesday 25 August 2026 · Doors 7:00pm · Show 7:30pm
📍 28 Heath Street, Hampstead NW3 6TE
🎫 Fifty-five seats, all good ones · Hampstead Station, Northern Line

STEP IN. COME UP. BE PART OF THE STORY.