Quarrels and closed doors mar critics' hunt for best meal: Relationships under strain revealed in new guides. Emily Green reports

(First Edition)

RIVALRY in the restaurant trade comes to the fore today with the publication of the 1994 Good Food Guide, edited by Tom Jaine, followed on 14 October by the Evening Standard London Restaurant Guide, edited by Fay Maschler.

Mr Jaine is the restaurant reviewer of the Sunday Telegraph. This is his fourth and final guide for the Consumers' Association. Ms Maschler has reviewed restaurants for the Evening Standard for 21 years, but this is her first guide.

The degree to which critical stances can differ even with such seasoned professionals, is best illustrated by the entries for Nico Ladenis's London restaurant on Park Lane, Nico at 90. Mr Jaine in the GFG accords it a top rating of 5, while Ms Maschler writes: 'It is to be hoped that in next year's edition our relationship with Nico Ladenis will permit reviews of his restaurants, which rightfully belong in a London guide.'

In translation this means Mr Ladenis barred Ms Maschler following a spat over a review.

Ms Maschler leads each entry by, somewhat eccentrically, quoting herself. The quote introducing Beth's in Hampstead, north London, reads: 'Where my sister cooks'. Not any more. Shortly after opening, it got poor reviews, she has since left, and the restaurant is now called Byron's.

For his part, Mr Jaine's guide implies that Marco Pierre White is a hothead. His editor assisted with tales of Mr White's fantastic temper in the Sunday Telegraph.

Otherwise, Mr Jaine appears to have mellowed. Gone are his swipes at restaurateurs such as Raymond Blanc and Michel Roux that peppered previous guides. This year, Mr Blanc's Manoir aux Quat' Saisons in Great Milton, Oxfordshire, receives fulsome praise and top marking. Mr Roux's Waterside Inn at Bray, Berkshire, gets 4 and a star.

Most fighting talk, however, is reserved for classic bugbears of the Consumers' Association: restaurant cover charges, pounds 3 price tags on mineral water and 'optional' service charges.

It may fall on deaf ears. The sentiment toward the GFG among restaurateurs last week at the annual Restaurant Show in Islington, north London, was: physician, heal thyself.