Either Irish appetites are growing or we have lost the ability to cook at home, because the number of restaurants opening in this country - and especially the capital - continues to climb. Ask an older generation of Dubliners where they went to dine and a mere handful of names is mentioned - invariably beginning with a crooning lament for the loss of Jammet's. None of the capital's famous eateries from earlier this century has survived (unless one counts the Unicorn where only the name and a handful of the clientele survived a radical overhaul earlier this decade). They continue to exist in books of tinted photographs, having been superseded by a new generation of smart restaurants in which decor jostles with food for precedence.

Will any of the 1990s favoured spots eventually come to evoke the same nostalgia? In Dublin, most currently fashionable places share the same characteristics, so it may be that in the popular memory they will eventually blur into one generic outlet serving seared tuna steak nestling on a bed of roquette leaves and parmesan shavings with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.

Both menu and interior design are practically interchangeable in all the most fashionable restaurants right now, allowing the clientele to move from one location to the next without too much sense of culinary dislocation. As a result, it is now possible to provide restaurateurs with a blueprint for achieving success, outside the kitchen at least. Here are eight rules to follow if you want your new restaurant to achieve fashionable status.

1. Paint the walls white

Perhaps the most important ingredient of all. Virginal white is still the sine qua non of minimalist chic and suggests clinical cleanliness; we don't know what the staff are doing with the food, but we like to imagine they are treating it with reverential respect (not performing all those unmentionable things it is rumoured they do whenever a diner annoys them). White is pure, easy to maintain, smart and acts as a perfect backdrop for the black clothes that fashionable people like to wear.

2. Install an open-plan kitchen

Not always necessary, but this helps to confirm the belief that food is treated with respect - and shows that if something falls on the floor, it is not given a quick dust-down and popped back on the plate. There are certain drawbacks to an open-plan kitchen. Chief among these is the sight of shiny-browed chefs sweating over your plate beneath unflattering fluorescent lighting which tends to spill over into the restaurant proper. (In such places decline a table near the kitchen ledge.) From the kitchen staff's perspective, this design is unsatisfactory because it precludes opportunities for swearing lavishly at each other when the pressure mounts.

3. Treat space extravagantly

Think high ceilings and lots of space between tables. The latter is beneficial because it allows diners to hold a private conversation without fear of eavesdroppers. Another bonus is not having the waiters bang into the back of your chair every time they need to clear plates from a neighbouring party. But spaciousness comes at a price. High ceilings are usually matched by high bills - the restaurateur could have squeezed in a mezzanine but chose to forgo this and now you must pay for the loss of potential revenue.

4. Hang art on the walls

There are strict definitions of art in the context of restaurants. Framed prints of old master still lives will not do, nor will views of the Ligurian coast, as favoured by traditional Italian trattoria. Contemporary restaurant art needs to be big, bold and abstract - this is what looks best against white walls. Anything figurative is too distracting and frames are invariably not used. As yet, there have been no instances of installation art, of the Damien Hirst kind seen in London's Pharmacy and Quo Vadis restaurants, but it can only be a matter of time before these put in an appearance here.

5. Do not use fabrics

Notice how fashionable restaurants have no curtains, or carpets or often even seat covers? The absence of fabrics makes maintenance much easier (no drink/smoke smells or stains) but is not without its disadvantages. Principal among these is the increase in noise; a fashionable restaurant is a loud restaurant, not just because it is popular but also because there is nothing to absorb the sound. Since most places now play music as well - usually jazz or soul, although we have heard The Carpenters' greatest hits in the Clarence's Tea Rooms - these restaurants are best avoided if you are planning an intimate evening.

6. Consider a retro-style for your decor

This definitely does not mean full-blown baroque with gilt mirrors and red velvet. Fashionable retro has a vaguely-1950s quality, as seen in the use of dark-stained wood for tongue-and-groove panelling, outbreaks of orange and brown in the colour scheme, oval lamps and lampshades and those slightly uncomfortable Swedish plastic swivel chairs. All these qualify as hip references to the past without making too strong a statement. Just as important, all work very well with white walls.

7. Use natural materials

Except for the plastic chairs, that is. Otherwise, think wood, chrome and glass. Especially the last of these. Fashionable restaurants tend to have very big windows, as though diners want to share their good fortune with everyone outside who didn't manage to bag a table. Glass, either clear or sandblasted, is also used internally to divide the space. Candles (in glass holders) are another material much favoured by smart establishments; not the tall thin kind that used to decorate restaurant tables but either short, stocky ones or else little night lights that inevitably go out halfway through the meal and have to be replaced. Expect their use to be reflected in your bill.

8. Decorate with large flower arrangements

Little vases containing a couple of frayed carnations (or worse, dusty silk ones) are absolutely forbidden in fashionable places. Instead, there will be one or two towering pieces containing not just exotic, multi-petalled flowers but also a couple of pieces of driftwood, a palm frond and some dried twig shooting off to spike a passing diner in the eye. Or a long shelf will hold a series of glass dishes each containing one flawless bloom. Flowers are the one piece of decoration in which colour is permitted. The result: a riot of contrasting shades in an otherwise monochrome room.