It’s a great time for the foodies with The Gourmet Top 100, The Age and Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guides and The Australian entering the competition with its National Top 50. In the last fortnight there has been just so much for restaurant lovers to argue about.

And I wonder what it all means, all these chefs toques and rankings? Do they really help us ordinary people decide where we go out for lunch and dinner? I presume they do because the papers and magazines keep publishing them with the support of eager advertisers and the guides in book form keep selling. They are no mugs those people at Penguin. How wonderful to have a book where people pay out for a new edition every year! Makes the Good Food Guides rather like annual magazines really.

I’ve been taking a look at the rankings and am intrigued to know what Crikey readers think about them. I have compiled a summary table of what the various guides have decided and hope you will give you views about whether restaurant ratings are helpful or meaningless.

What are your thoughts?

Bon appetit.