Too many restaurants in Ireland are preoccupied with unoriginal dishes like "braised lamb shanks and confit pork bellies", according to one of Ireland's leading food critics.
John McKenna, who is co-author of the Bridgestone guide with his wife Sally, criticises certain restaurants for lacking ambition.
But, he said, recent years had also seen the coming of age of the "maverick" restaurateur, who was willing to "do their own thing cooking with their own signature".
He said this mirrors a "substance over style" trend seen in other cities such as New York.
Revealing details of this year's "100 best restaurants" guide and the separate "100 best places to stay 2008" guide in Dublin yesterday, the food critics also launched their first mobile telephone guide to Dublin restaurants.
This includes brief restaurant summaries, the ability to phone and book a table directly, directions, public transport details and GPS co-ordinates for the restaurant.
Available at www.bridgestoneguides.com/mobile, it also offers suggestions under categories such as "near tha Dort", "Classy southsiders" and "Authentic Italian".
Among the noticeable absentees from this year's list of top restaurants recommended in the guides are Roly's bistro in Ballsbridge, Dublin, the Tea Room at the U2-owned Clarence Hotel, Dublin, and Jacobs on the Mall restaurant in Cork city.
Once again, there is also no place for another of Dublin's best-known restaurants, Restaurant Patrick Guilbaud, which has failed to find favour with the authors in the past.
The best places to stay guide also omits hotels such as the Morrison and Clarence in Dublin and the Zuni boutique hotel in Kilkenny, while the Shelbourne hotel on St Stephen's Green again fails to feature, despite a significant recent refurbishment.
By comparison, there are 19 new entries in the restaurant guide alone, including Alexis Bar and Grill, Locks and Balzac in Dublin, the Sage Cafe in Limerick, and Bialann agus Seomra Só, Inis Meáin, on the Aran Islands.
In the places to stay guide, which includes 12 new entries, there is also high praise for fresh additions such as Brook's hotel on Drury street in Dublin, Bellinter House in Navan, Co Meath, and again Seomraí Só, Inis Meáin.
Speaking yesterday at the launch of the two new guides and the new mobile phone service, in Ely Hq restaurant on Hanover Quay, Dublin - which also makes the list along with its two sister restaurants in Dublin - McKenna said he was concerned about the emergence of what he termed "builder's hotels", built partly as a result of tax breaks.
These were constructed and operated by people with expertise in the building trade, but who did not necessarily know how to run a hotel, he said.
He also expressed concern about the diminution of the so-called "Irish welcome" due to a lack of Irish staff.
Asked why certain venues had been omitted from the list, McKenna said it reflected the particular interests of his readership, who wished to know what places were "hip" and captured the "zeitgeist."
"They want to know who are the hot talents," he said.
For example, the failure to include Roly's bistro perhaps reflected its position as the "[London] Savoy of Dublin".
"It does what it does and does it brilliantly, but it is no longer defining the food culture of Dublin," he told The Irish Times. "Our readers are hungry for new stuff . . . our role as critic is always to be looking for people who are defining the zeitgeist.
"Another factor with some establishments is that once something is in development [for example the Clarence Hotel] or on the market, it has to come out of the book.
"But there are too many braised lamb shanks and confit bellies of pork out there. . . there's a real danger these are going to become the prawn cocktail and Black Forest gateau of the noughties."