Life

Rayner Rayner back in Belfast back in Belfast

Jay Rayner is one of Britain's most renowned (and feared) restaurant critics and after one negative and one positive review of Belfast's eateries up his floral-design sleeve, he's been back for more. With a new book to promote too, he talks to Brian Campbell

JAY Rayner describes himself on Twitter as someone who "eats, writes about it, ponces about on telly, has big hair". He is a big guy, has distinctive facial hair and a face that's instantly recognisable to anyone who has read his restaurant reviews in The Observer or seen him on The One Show on BBC One. Rayner was in Belfast this week to film for The One Show, to record an episode of his BBC Radio Four programme The Kitchen Cabinet - and to review a restaurant. His first review in Belfast was a scathing critique of Made in Belfast in 2011, followed by a positive report on the James Street South Bar and Grill last April. Before our interview in the city's Cathedral Quarter, someone had tweeted "Watch out Cathedral Quarter restaurateurs, pretty sure Jay Rayner just went down Hill Street in a cab." Rayner was quick to tweet back: "I've already had lunch." He posted a photo of oysters he had ordered at Mourne Seafood but he wouldn't say if the popular restaurant would be the subject of his review. "My editor is going to give me a double-page spread so I can write more about Belfast than just the one place I originally planned to review - because I've eaten in a few other places and things are going on here," he says. "You can always define the quality of what's going on when you realise that there are more places to eat in than you're going to get to eat in and that's going on in Belfast." He wouldn't reveal the places he would be reviewing but in an online interview he had admitted that he hadn't been to Ox. Conducting our interview in a cafe, it says a lot about how well known Rayner is when the waiter spends what seems like an age polishing our table to within an inch of its life - before declaring himself a fan of the food critic. Rayner says he always gets a flood of restaurant recommendations on Twitter as soon as he reveals which city he's going to. "I have also asked for suggestions on Twitter in the past and I do use it in that way. It works sometimes. My first trip here didn't necessarily work out as well as I might have hoped," he says, referring to his Made in Belfast visit. He was irked this March when an image appeared on Facebook of himself in a leprechaun hat along with a quote from his review about the Made in Belfast menu using the word "Irish" 16 times. While he had made this point as part of an overall negative critique, the Facebook post was being used to promote the restaurant in the build-up to St Patrick's Day, with the line "Where better to spend St Paddy's Day?" "I would have no problem if they were merely taking the mickey out of me and making me look like a leprechaun, but the implication was that they were making a negative review look positive and that's what got me," he says. "I suppose if you've got a completely critical review, perhaps the best you can hope for is to abuse the reviewer." He stresses that he didn't come to Belfast in 2011 with the express aim of sticking the boot into one of the city's restaurants. "If I had wanted to go and find something really awful in Belfast, I don't think it's stretching things to say that wouldn't have been too difficult. I could have found something really awful. "I also wanted to avoid a cliche of 'Northern Irish food and provenance'. I wanted instead to go somewhere which looked from its menu to be forward facing. "But it wasn't an attempt to go and find somewhere bad. Why would I do that for my first restaurant in Belfast? I'm not without ego and I want to be liked." On this visit to the city he says he was impressed by what he saw in terms of restaurants.

"I get the impression that it's bursting out all over. There are some key players doing some serious stuff and there is business going on. It compares with the big cities that are burgeoning in the United Kingdom. "There are loads of cities in Britain where you struggle [to find lots of good restaurants] - places like Cardiff and Newcastle." Rayner was also in town to promote his new book A Greedy Man in a Hungry World (pictured left) and hosted a sold-out event at the Belfast Book Festival last Sunday evening. The book argues that "the doctrine of local food is dead" and that farmers' markets are merely a lifestyle choice for the affluent middle classes. He contends that 'organic' has become little more than a marketing label and that "buying local food" isn't always the economically sustainable thing to do. "Farmers' markets like to present themselves as the progressive face of the food chain but I've become more and more convinced that they're conservative with a small 'c' and they seem to be missing the point of what's going on. "Some people mythologise agriculture and they wag their fingers at people over food choices. Modern life is tough enough. Don't berate people who have complicated jobs and maybe their marriage has ended and they have kids to look after and money's tight - have a bit of humanity." Rayner says it's too simplistic to call all big supermarkets 'evil' but says they have become so large that they should be considered in terms of public utilities like gas and phone companies. "They are a multi-billion-pound business and they are providing a vital utility and that brings with it massive responsibilities - and I think they've failed with those responsibilities. "People in the [food] industry were saying to me 'Something's got to give - we cannot keep getting penalised by the supermarkets like this.' But nobody predicted the horsemeat scandal." Rayner - whose late mother Claire was the popular agony aunt, writer and broadcaster - was also filming in Glenarm and at Hannan Meats in Moira for an upcoming food feature on The One Show. He has been at The Observer since 1996 and the paper's restaurant critic since 1999 - he estimates he has reviewed about 750 places in that time. He says he loves his job. "It's a good gig. If I'm not writing an entertaining column, then I'll lose my job. I avoid reading Adrian (Gill) or Giles (Coren), because on any given weekend I think any of us can outwrite the others and I don't want to read them when they've outwritten me." And is it true that his photo can be found in some restaurant kitchens so staff will recognise him if he walks in? "It's true. I've seen it a couple of times but I've had it reported to me more often." Part of his new book sees Rayner spend time at an abattoir in Yorkshire, with the idea being "to work there long enough to become inured to the process and not be shocked by it". "The slaughter of a cow is not the same as the slaughter of a sheep or a pig. Cattle are vast and watching animals of that size go down is an extraordinary experience," he says. "It's not practical that everybody who eats meat could get to see the process but they should read about it and be aware of it. "We delegate responsibility for the deaths of animals to others and we turn away from it and we don't want to know." But isn't he still a meat-eater? "Oh yeah. Although meat-free days have arrived in our house." And he says, without hesitation, that his favoured meat is pork. "Vitamin P. It's a fine thing."

? A Greedy Man in a Hungry World is out now, published by William Collins.

? ACID RAYNER: Food critic Jay Rayner in Belfast's

Cathedral Quarter

PICTURE: Mal McCann