Restaurants which offer good quality and value are thriving despite the recession but most of the mainstream pubs are doomed unless they change their approach, food writer John McKenna said yesterday as he launched the latest edition of the Bridgestone Guides .

He said Irish people wanted to spend their money on Irish things in Ireland. “The restaurants here are not just surviving; they are thriving. You wouldn’t believe the amount of people who have told me, when I was doing the research for the books, that they actually had their best ever year in business.”

People were spending less money on wine in restaurants and more on food, he said, and were avoiding pubs unless they had something special to offer. “The pubs are doomed. The pubs are dinosaurs. They don’t seem to recognise that their biggest problem is that all the pubs are individual yet they all sell exactly the same drinks.” Places like L Mulligan’s in Dublin’s Stoneybatter were bucking the trend by selling craft beers and providing good food.

This is the 21st year that McKenna and his wife, Sally, have co-authored the Bridgestone 100 Best Restaurants in Ireland and Bridgestone 100 Best Places to Stay in Ireland.  Some 17 restaurants have been dropped to make way for new entries.

Those dropped include Dublin’s 101 Talbot Street which McKenna described as “a great restaurant but the bar has been raised by the competition”.

For the first time this year, the guides are also available on apps costing €6.99. The Bridgestone Places to Stay app will be available from Friday. The guide books cost €12 each.