Chefs might like to crack open the champagne but only pour themselves a very small glass. The past 12 months have set a new record for restaurant openings - but also, as dining out becomes a hunt not for the nicest food but the trendiest experience, a soaring number of closures, sometimes within months of opening.

The phenomenon is most marked in London, fuelled by City bonuses and diners who no longer bat an eyelid at bills of £100 a head.

In the past year 158 restaurants opened in London alone, 13% up on the previous year, and well ahead of the previous record of 146 in 2005. They included a series of celebrity chef ventures, including a new Gary Rhodes venue, Rhodes W1, Gordon Ramsay's first gastropub, and the first British restaurant of French chef Joel Robuchon, joining his little empire in Paris, New York, Las Vegas and Tokyo.

"This is a golden age for the London restaurant-goer, with the restaurant scene reaching a stage which would once have seemed inconceivable," said Peter Harden, co-editor of the annual Harden guide, which has been tracking the capital's restaurants for the last 17 years. "It continues to evolve, generally for the good, faster than ever. Perhaps it's not surprising when you consider the amount of money which seems nowadays to be swilling around the capital."

Openings included the Acorn House, a restaurant in King's Cross built from recycled materials, growing its herbs and salads on the roof, and promising to compost every scrap of its kitchen waste.

However, it was last orders for 89 establishments, a third up on the previous year, including some such as the Portuguese restaurant Tugga, and the Brazilian Mocoto, where the ink had barely dried on the invitations to glitzy opening parties.

The casualties included the Chelsea Kitchen, a London institution on the Kings Road for half a century, a haven for generations of impoverished students where until the day it closed it was still possible to consume a glass of wine and three thoroughly old fashioned courses, and come away with a pocketful of change from a £20 note.

The year also saw off the unpronounceable W'Sens; the Astor Bar and Grill, a re-invention of the classic American steak house whose website now reads forlornly "thanks for the memories, we've had a great year"; and Zinc, of which one enraged punter wrote on a foodie website: "The worst meal I've eaten in London ever". The closures were part of the same phenomenon as the explosion of openings, Mr Harden said.

"As more exciting and better restaurants open their doors, there is obviously greater pressure on unsatisfactory concepts, and on tired restaurants which are moving towards the end of their days."

There was more to come, he warned. "Closures move on a five to six-year cycle, and history suggests that, once established, a rising trend in closures will last at least two years."