The 2010 versions of Harden's, Zagat and the Good Food Guide have all been published in the past week and stirred up the usual helping of bickering and oneupmanship at the top of the culinary charts.

By far the most interesting aspect of the new guides is their identification of emerging talent - the Gordons and Hestons of tomorrow. While not exactly new, Angela Hartnett's Murano restaurant in Mayfair performed well across the board, judged the best newcomer by Zagat London Restaurants survey.

Hartnett, a Gordon Ramsay protégé, argues that Ramsay's "bad press" this year hasn't affected the food or people's perception of it. In response to Zagat's finding that 53 per cent of people think the food suffers in a restaurant when a celebrity chef is frequently out of the kitchen on the media bandwagon she says: "I disagree with that. My head chef does an equally good job.

"You don't develop people if you're there constantly," and people love seeing the likes of Gordon on TV, she says. "They can't have it both ways, then slag the guy off for not being in the kitchen. Sometimes people just want to dig the knife in." The survey also found that 43 per cent of respondents are more likely to dine at a restaurant with a notable name above the door, though not necessarily with the named chef on cooking duty.

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Guidebooks still perform an important function but fewer people are going into bookstores, says Nina Zagat, co-founder of Zagat Survey. Like Harden's, Zagat now offers its restaurant reviews across several platforms including mobile aps for iPhones and sat-nav systems and offer plenty of user-generated content online.

According to Hartnett, guidebooks are still "a great way of recruiting staff", as people join up wanting to be part of a restaurant's buzz.

Outside of London, Stephen Harris at The Sportsman in Whitstable and Ryan Simpson, chef at The Goose, in Oxfordshire garner high praise in The Good Food Guide. The Nut Tree Inn, also in Oxfordshire, sources pork and Dexter beef from its own herds and spring lamb from local small holdings, while a plain looking restaurant in the Wirral, Da Piero, is "best new entry" in the Good Food Guide for the "joyful" cooking of Sicilian chef Piero Di Bella.

Other editors' favourites in the Good Food Guide:

Pub newcomer of the year: The Harwood Arms, Fulham, London which “raises the bar for the whole gastropub experience”.

Best pub chef: Guy Manning, Red Lion, Wiltshire is “colossally talented”.

Best fish restaurant: The Café at Brovey Lair, Norfolk. The seafood cooking “gives pan-Asian food a good name.”

Best value for money: The Dogs, Edinburgh. A “buzzy bistro for credit crunch times” where the prices are “a steal”.

Best set menu: Michael Caines at ABode Manchester. The three course ‘amazing grazing’ set lunch with matching wines is “wonderful value” at under £20.

Wine list of the year: Fraiche, Merseyside. The wine list “plunders the world’s vineyards for alluring flavours and intriguing styles, but you won’t need a bulging wallet to appreciate its many gems.”

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