Talk:Jay Rayner

Untitled

Date and place of birth? Identity of father? P Cezanne (talk) 18:04, 12 December 2008 (UTC) Father unknown. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.166.163.8 (talk) 14:05, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

GA review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Jay Rayner/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: Launchballer (talk · contribs) 17:16, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

Reviewer: UndercoverClassicist (talk · contribs) 21:53, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

I'll have a look at this. I'm not an expert by any means, but did enjoy when he used to present Out to Lunch.

• I did say the rest were advisory, and I stand by that -- so will pass the article now. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 19:50, 2 August 2025 (UTC)

Initial comments

Most of these are more-or-less advisory for GA:

• He spent a few months there as its diary correspondent: I had no idea what this was, so I followed the link -- he's not much help, but he does call it a diary columnist there. Apparently this is a sort of "news-that's-not-news" column that's now mostly dead, so I think columnist is the right word -- a correspondent is based somewhere or has a particular purview to report on something.

Changed.--Launchballer 15:45, 2 August 2025 (UTC)

• He became a restaurant critic in 1999 and developed a reputation for acerbity in his columns, with several going viral including a takedown of Paris restaurant Le Cinq: I don't know if we've got the sources to actually say this, but it does strike me that he was beavering away for about a decade and a half before any of the virality happened.

Couldn't find a source to that effect, will happily add if you do.--Launchballer 15:45, 2 August 2025 (UTC)

• I might need a bit of persuading that "Beard of the Year" deserves to be in a list of awards, but I'm very open to that persuasion.

I also think it's borderline and have moved it to prose.--Launchballer 15:45, 2 August 2025 (UTC)

• Among his works during this period was an Esquire piece co-written with his wife about their fertility troubles. He also spent time as a sex columnist for Cosmopolitan before returning to The Observer in 1996 as a generalist, by which time he had married Pat Gordon-Smith: the wife in the Esquire piece was Gordon-Smith, as the source makes clear. Advise reordering to put the marriage first.

I named Gordon-Smith at the end of the previous paragraph.--Launchballer 15:45, 2 August 2025 (UTC)

Yes, I would make clear that they had married -- currently she goes from "his future wife" to "his wife", but we don't actually name her on the second occasion, and people often have more than one spouse over their lives. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 16:32, 2 August 2025 (UTC)

• In general, British style doesn't capitalise The in a title of a newspaper, band etc in running text where the "the" could otherwise form part of the sentence: so "he was a columnist for the Observer" is preferred to "He was a columnist for The Observer". NB however that "the station's food panel programme The Kitchen Cabinet" is correct.

Changed the newspapers, have left the programmes and books - let me know if I've misinterpreted.--Launchballer 15:45, 2 August 2025 (UTC)

• My Last Supper (2019) used the question to explore his food past: used which question?

Of his last supper. I've added a wikilink to last meal.--Launchballer 15:45, 2 August 2025 (UTC)

Media

One image (File:Jay Rayner 20191205.jpg), taken by a Wikimedian and appropriately CC licensed. Not strictly required for GA, but beneficial for accessibility, would be an alt text with a physical description, for the benefit of those using screen readers.

The quote box serves the same function as media, so I'll include it here. I would give some context to his ("as reported by ABC News in 2017") -- it's not clear from the source how far these are something Rayner offered versus an idea the interviewer had and asked him to provide. Or are these the chapter titles from his book?

Chapter titles from his book.--Launchballer 15:45, 2 August 2025 (UTC)

I would make that clear in the citation. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 16:32, 2 August 2025 (UTC)

Sourcing

Perhaps inevitably, most of the sources are journalism. Some are skating right up to the line of WP:RS -- for instance, our citation of the Enfield Independent (local news) for the "Acid Rayner" nickname. More generally, a lot of local news, which is at best a bit sketchy for WP:NEWSORG. One or two very uncontroversial claims (edit: actually, eventually, quite a lot of the article) are sourced to Rayner himself, but this is fine under WP:ABOUTSELF given that they are generally low-stakes and "laundered" through publications who ought to have fact-checked them (and indeed they're often the sort of claims that could easily be checked, such as which TV show he presented with whom). At the moment I'm generally happy, given that this is GA and not FAC: I think the sources are good enough for the weight they're being asked to bear.

Spot checks:

• Note 6: He claimed in April 2016 to have auditioned for, and had a "very lucky escape" from, an unsuccessful ITV cooking competition co-produced by Optomen that UKGameshows identified as Food Glorious Food -- the source says this was Britain's Best Dish, not Food Glorious Food.

Rayner's claim in the Radio Times piece that Britain's Best Dish is a show "Simon Cowell's company did [...] with Optimum" that "died on its feet" is demonstrably wrong on multiple counts (see both our articles). This was actually missing a source, which I added, but given that SyCo have only done one cooking show I could probably get away with quietly getting it right per WP:WSAW?--Launchballer 15:45, 2 August 2025 (UTC)

WSAW is an essay, and even then, "quietly get it right" only works when other, better sources are right -- not when all the sources are wrong. UKGameshows.com looks like, at least in part, user-generated content (see here) -- what makes it a reliable source? UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 16:35, 2 August 2025 (UTC)

Found to be fine for opinions at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 375#UKGameshows.com for reviews and opinions, and there's an analysis of its coverage at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/UKGameshows.com (3rd nomination) that suggests it passes WP:USEBYOTHERS, but out of an abundance of caution I've cut the claim.--Launchballer 18:08, 2 August 2025 (UTC)

• 8a, 8b and 8c: check fine. Some of the phrasing is pretty close, but that's not always avoidable given that Rayner isn't always being overly clear (which student newspaper did he edit?), so we have to stick closely to what he actually said.
• Note 11: checks (the source is Rayner, but presumably this is in the public record and would be easy enough to verify)
• Note 15a and 15b: checks, though see caveat about sequencing above.
• Note 16: as for 11, except the interviewer seems to have done that bit of research himself.
• Note 30: pretty much there, but the source describes it "as an art history-cum-romantic thriller" [sic], which isn't quite a "romance novel". I haven't read it, so take no position, but whatever we say should have a source behind it.

Changed it to thriller. What else is needed for GA @UndercoverClassicist:?--Launchballer 15:45, 2 August 2025 (UTC)

The sourcing question above is mission-critical; the rest advisory but, at least in my view, very much worth doing. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 16:36, 2 August 2025 (UTC)

The following are optional for GA, but advisory:

• Consider standardising formatting -- e.g. ISSNs or no ISSNs, sentence case versus title case in article headings.
• Note 40: the writer's name isn't "Guest Writer" -- it's Matthew Bell. In fact, note 11 and note 40 are the same, so I would merge them: let me know if you want a hand with the practicalities.
• Ditto Note 30 ("Gazette, Press") and 62 ("Times, the Sunday").
• Dashes in titles (like "Interview – Jay Rayner praises...") should be endashes (–) not hyphens (-).
• Note 16: you could credit the author (Angela Cole). Ditto note 24 (James McAllister).

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by AirshipJungleman29 talk 17:11, 6 September 2025 (UTC)

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• Comment or view
• Article history

)

Dining room of Le Cinq in April 2017

• ... that a viral review of Le Cinq (dining room pictured) described it as decorated in "taupe, biscuit, and fuck you"?
  • ALT1: ... that Le Cinq (dining room pictured) made "the world's most feared restaurant critic" wonder what he could do to it with "a can of kerosene and a box of matches"?
  • ALT2: ... that a viral review of Le Cinq (dining room pictured) came with pictures of "piles of slime on plates"?
  • ALT3: ... that "the world's most feared restaurant critic" was made "eye-gougingly, bone-crunchingly, teeth-grindingly angry" by Le Cinq (dining room pictured)?
  • ALT4: ... that a viral review of Le Cinq (dining room pictured) has been described as "worth a read, in a craning-your-neck-to-look-at-a-very-expensive-car-crash kind of way"?
  • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Operators and Things
  • Comment: The IPA and co-ord templates are causing DYKcheck to malfunction, so you'll need to check that manually.

5x expanded by Launchballer (talk). Number of QPQs required: 1. Nominator has 306 past nominations.

Launchballer 19:54, 29 June 2025 (UTC).

• Hooks are properly cited and are quite interesting and funny. Article is well written. Passing. Arconning (talk) 08:22, 30 June 2025 (UTC)
  • @Launchballer and Arconning:, please either move this article to Jay Rayner's review of Le Cinq, as the current article is more about it than the restaurant, or remove the bloated unencyclopedic mess of the fourth paragraph of "History". ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 15:38, 18 July 2025 (UTC)
    • @Launchballer: Ough I guess that's true, I guess it's your final call on what to do. Arconning (talk) 16:27, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

A restaurant with three Michelin stars deserves its own article, so have trimmed the paragraph (I left the last sentence but would not contest its removal). I need longer to decide whether the review itself also deserves its own article.--Launchballer 16:43, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

I split this; ALT0, ALT2, ALT4, and to a lesser extent ALT3 would work as a double hook, and my new QPQ is 2025 Chennai Super Kings season. (Hmmm, can I get Jay Rayner through WP:GARC in five weeks...)--Launchballer 14:17, 23 July 2025 (UTC)

Rayner's now at GARC.--Launchballer 17:57, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

Jay Rayner in December 2019

ALT0a: ... that a viral review by Top Chef Masters judge Jay Rayner (pictured) described Le Cinq as decorated in "taupe, biscuit, and fuck you"?

ALT1a: ... that the Top Chef Masters judge Jay Rayner (pictured) was dubbed "the world's most feared food critic" after writing a viral review of Le Cinq?

ALT2a: ... that a viral review of Le Cinq by Top Chef Masters judge Jay Rayner (pictured) came with pictures of "piles of slime on plates"?

ALT3a: ... that the Top Chef Masters judge Jay Rayner (pictured) wrote a viral review of Le Cinq because he was "eye-gougingly, bone-crunchingly, teeth-grindingly angry"?

ALT4a: ... that a viral review of Le Cinq by Top Chef Masters judge Jay Rayner (pictured) has been described as "worth a read in a craning-your-neck-to-look-at-a-very-expensive-car-crash kind of way"?

My new QPQs are Danan: The Jungle Fighter and John Schulman; full review needed for the three new articles. Rayner's birthday is on 14 September, so I may put in a date request at WT:DYK.--Launchballer 01:57, 3 August 2025 (UTC)

Not a review, but ALT1a sounds like the best option here. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 00:02, 5 August 2025 (UTC)

I love multi-hooks and these are all hilarious, Launchballer. Jay Rayner's review of Le Cinq is one of the topics that definitely belong on Wikipedia, yet few would think of writing about. The article has been tagged with Template:Non-free by Tbhotch, but there is no discussion of it on the talk page. Could we straighten this out here? Should we say in wikivoice that "he had been irritated by people moaning about the cost of eating out"? Reference #4 is just a link with a title, nearly a bare URL reference. I am not sure if the article can count as new: the entire content was split from Le Cinq a month after that article was created and nominated here. Other than that, length and sources pose no problems, and I particularly like how the article balances different POVs.
The Jay Rayner GA nomination passed on 2 August, so that certainly counts as new. Unsurprisingly, it is also long enough and the sources are impeccable. Neither Earwig nor my spot checks have uncovered any paraphrasing issues.
Top Chef Masters was recently and sufficiently expanded. The sources check out and I have not been able to detect any close paraphrasing. I wonder why the date and cause of Floyd Cardoz's death is relevant to the article. Surtsicna (talk) 09:40, 5 August 2025 (UTC)

I changed moaning, trimmed Cardoz's death, and filled out some URLs. Per WP:DYKSPLIT, "Articles split from new articles or articles with active nominations remain eligible". As for the tag, I removed some of the smaller quotes, but I think the rest are justified and would invite Tbhotch to explain themself.--Launchballer 11:06, 5 August 2025 (UTC)

I did not know about WP:DYKSPLIT. Thank you. All that's left now is to see what Tbhotch has to say. Surtsicna (talk) 19:19, 5 August 2025 (UTC)

The article now looks different from what I read yesterday. Now around 15% of the article is quoted, which is not as bad as the 30% from yesterday. (CC) Tbhotch^™ 21:02, 5 August 2025 (UTC)

Thanks. (Not quite sure how Airship's removal of the quote box is justified under WP:LIMITED, but if it gets the tag off then fine I guess?)--Launchballer 22:36, 5 August 2025 (UTC)

That's all settled then. I cannot honestly say which of these hilarious hooks I consider best. I'd better leave that to the promoter. Like Narutolovehinata5 noted, ALT1a might be the safest choice. Surtsicna (talk) 07:29, 7 August 2025 (UTC)

• Pinging @Launchballer, @Arconning, @Surtsicna, @Narutolovehinata5, @AirshipJungleman29 and @Amakuru. I've pulled this from the prep as it is next to go into the que. This needs further discussion. TarnishedPath^talk 04:02, 18 August 2025 (UTC)

Needs this icon to prevent being promoted. Launchballer suggested two new hooks in the discussion:

• ALT3b: ... that the Top Chef Masters judge Jay Rayner (pictured) has attributed writing his viral review of Le Cinq to being "eye-gougingly, bone-crunchingly, teeth-grindingly angry"?, or
• ALT4b: ... that a viral review of Le Cinq by Top Chef Masters judge Jay Rayner (pictured) was described by Vice as "worth a read in a craning-your-neck-to-look-at-a-very-expensive-car-crash kind of way"?

Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 05:16, 18 August 2025 (UTC)

These look good. I might have a slight preference for ALT3b. Surtsicna (talk) 21:33, 28 August 2025 (UTC)

Thanks @Surtsicna:. What do you say to running this on 14 September, Rayner's birthday? It's six weeks from the day Rayner was added to the nom, so I don't think WP:DYKSO should be a problem.--Launchballer 21:45, 28 August 2025 (UTC)

It would be a fun homage. Let's do it. Surtsicna (talk) 21:59, 28 August 2025 (UTC)

Age not updated

the birthdate and age don't add up - it appears not to have rolled over when the date was passed this year 82.9.109.34 (talk) 18:04, 15 September 2025 (UTC)

Citing

Hey Launchballer, no trouble with the revert. I think this is analogous to bullet point six of 3. in WP:RECEPTION. What do you think? Whonting (talk) 15:10, 16 May 2026 (UTC)

Interesting essay, not one I've come across. I would have said "citing" was analogous to "felt".--Launchballer 15:29, 16 May 2026 (UTC)

I won't press it, but he obviously doesn't feel that The Observer was being sold to Tortoise Media, that is in wikivoice, and the same implication imo goes for the rest. Whonting (talk) 01:49, 17 May 2026 (UTC)