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With just over a week to go until the 2009 Michelin guide for Great Britain and Ireland is released, rumours are rife about who will and who won't be getting stars this year.

Kitchen Rat spoke to some of the culinary wizards who have gained stars themselves in the past about who they think deserves to win this year.

After last year's relatively poor crop of awards, hopes are high that there'll be at least a few two stars handed out this year. Restaurants including L'Autre Pied, Nathan Outlaw, Marcus Wareing at the Berkeley and Claude and Claire Bosi's Hibiscus are getting the top votes from their peers but the consensus among the industry seems that 2009 will be yet another year where the UK's number of three-starred restaurants will remain unchanged.

Here's what our top chefs had to say:

We're often guilty of talking of the hotel of the future here at Caterer with gay abandon. But how about this little baby, the brainchild of a Russian architect, with enough attributes to turn the head of many a property speculator?

It's by the Alexander Asadov Architectural Studio, and is different that's for sure.

Architects have busied themselves in the past 50 years with designing mobile homes, but this is one of the first hotels with portability as its label. All you need is a puddle of water to suspend it over.

The only problem is the name: Aerotel. Sounds like there might be a few holes in the concept.

Premier Inn opens green hotel >>

Hotels that blaze a green trail >>

Americans are already making their predictions for next year - and what happens there tends to come here after a lag time of around four-six months. It's not hard to think of an example...the collapse of the over-funded mortgage market is a pretty good case of something reaching here with knobs on.

Anyway, one thing they're predicting is the demise of the big-ticket hotel restaurant chef next year. No surprise there, you might say, except that it would have a major impact on the dining rooms of Park Lane if that came to pass.

On that particular strasse top name chefs are packed in tighter than a Victoria line commuter train carriage, and some were said to be experiencing some difficulties even before the horrendous past six months came to pass. 

The issue around MFI and Woolworths is that they were just keeping their head above water in the good times. Now things have dipped somewhat the removal men have been called in, and I can think of a few that the same applies to on that famous Monopoly dark blue coloured-road

Let's hope Aiden Byrne leaving the Dorchester isn't a harbinger of things to come.

Alain Ducasse brings in new chef at the Dorchester >>

Aiden Byrne to head the grill at the Dorchester >>

 They may have launched another one of those man-made island things with a party costing over £10m this week, and construction of the tallest building in the world goes on - a kilometre high being the target - but finally there's evidence that the unreal bubble the country lives in may be pricked, if not burst.

The Dubai government has debts of £52 billion, and it's rising fast as investment continues at its breakneck pace. Two banks that are entwined with the booming property market have been recently bailed out by the overarching United Arab Emirates State. Amlak Finance and Tamweel have become the Emirates Development Bank. In effect Abu Dhabi has come to the rescue of its big-spending Dubai neighbours.

We could enjoy their discomfort, but things are nowhere near as bad as they are here, and any pain they have will be likely to affect us eventually too, via higher oil prices.

Atlantis resort launched with £13.5m party >>

Dubai takes lead in Arab hotel expansion efforts>>

Alright already, we realise it's probably an eensy weeensy bit early to be making the calls but our spies at West London's new billion pound shopping centre, Westfield, were a bit surprised to see French fast food bar Croque Gascon looking remarkably un-busy yesterday while neighbouring food court rivals Vietnamese concept Pho and Middle Eastern/Lebanese outlet Comptoir Libanese were swamped with hungry shoppers queuing round the corner for their grub.

Perhaps fashionistas shopping at the Shepherd's bush mall aren't looking so much for fine French food as chic French fashion? Or could it be that the concept of it's signature duck burger is just simply quackers?

Only time will tell...

It's New Year and thoughts inevitably turn to the 12 months ahead. Kitchen Rat decided to do a bit of crystal ball gazing...

January
Hilton boss David Michels loses his entire £9m windfall from the Hilton-buys-Hilton deal in a marathon poker game with orange-skinned celebrity antique dealer David Dickenson.

February
Hot-tempered chef Tom Aikens is arrested and jailed after crowning a customer with an ashtray she tried to nick.

March
Wetherspoon's boss Tim Martin's mullet wins Best in Show at Crufts, but is caught out by tough new quarantine laws when it attempts to take a celebratory short break in Torremolinos.

April
Contract caterer Compass Group confesses to withholding discounts from suppliers for the past 50 years. Outgoing chairman Francis Mackay's wife admits: "He's been a very naughty boy."

May
Punch Taverns buys up all the pubs in the UK. Competition commission OKs the deal on the grounds that it can't really be arsed to investigate.

June
Jamie Oliver launches campaign to improve prison food but pulls out after a nasty incident in the shower room involving a dropped bar of soap.