Restaurant Critic, Jay Rayner, has been awarded the title of MasterChef: Battle of the Critics 2023 Champion and laid claim to the brand new Golden Cutlery trophy, as he out-cooked fellow Restaurant Critics Grace Dent, Leyla Kazim, William Sitwell, and Jimi Famurewa in this special festive episode.

On his win, Jay says: “I am beyond honoured, thank you very, very much. I will covet this. I’m absolutely delighted with this. I’ve not really publicly cooked much, I’ve been the critic, the writer. So, to get this feels like a really good tick from teacher. I’m absolutely made up, it’s fantastic.”

MasterChef judge John Torode says: “Jay today was all about generosity, we had six different types of seafood with fregola, little toasted bits of pasta, I’ve got to say. I thought it was pretty special.”

MasterChef judge Gregg Wallace added: “Jay’s chocolate pudding with the cherries was beautiful. I loved it, the dining room loved it. Pretty damn good.”

Jay served his winning two-course menu to the MasterChef judges and also to three guest critics and MasterChef trophy winners: Ping Coombes – MasterChef Champion 2014, Kenny Tutt – MasterChef Champion 2018, and Nikita Pathakji – MasterChef: The Professionals Champion 2022

Jay’s main was a Italian Seafood Fregola with Sardinian pasta, stewed squid, clams, mussels, prawns, scallops, seabass. He finished with a baked chocolate and cherry pudding and a red wine sauce and a cherry cream.

MasterChef: Battle of the Critics 2023 is available to watch on BBC iPlayer (see link below).