Best 8 quotes of Jay Rayner on MyQuotes

Bad restaurants find unique ways to be bad. Good ones are good in the same way: good food, nice staff, a pleasant room. The human capacity for finding unique ways to screw things up always amazes me.

English wine is like Belgian rock or German disco: a waste of everyone's time and money.

In my experience of vegan food it tends to be a symphony of beige.

One of my mottos for living is: never eat on a boat, unless you own the boat.

People adore bad reviews. Nobody would be interested in reading the good ones.

Salt is the difference between eating in Technicolor and eating in black and white.

The tragedy of my job [journalist] is that I rarely get to go where I want to go. I have to go where the job takes me.

Too often we only identify the crucial points in our lives in retrospect. At the time we are too absorbed in the fetid detail of the moment to spot where it is leading us. But not this time. I was experiencing one of my dad’s deafening moments. If my life could be understood as a meal of many courses (and let’s be honest, much of it actually was), then I had finished the starters and I was limbering up for the main event. So far, of course, I had made a stinking mess of it. I had spilled the wine. I had dropped my cutlery on the floor and sprayed the fine white linen with sauce. I had even spat out some of my food because I didn’t like the taste of it. “But it doesn’t matter because, look, here come the waiters. They are scraping away the debris with their little horn and steel blades, pulled with studied grace from the hidden pockets of their white aprons. They are laying new tablecloths, arranging new cutlery, placing before me great domed wine glasses, newly polished to a sparkle. There are more dishes to come, more flavors to try, and this time I will not spill or spit or drop or splash. I will not push the plate away from me, the food only half eaten. I am ready for everything they are preparing to serve me. Be in no doubt; it will all be fine.” (pp.115-6)