Why does London have so few top restaurants?

From international joke to world-beating hero, London’s dining out scene has been transformed in the 25 years since the restaurant guide I co-established began publication. (I'm not suggesting any causative link, incidentally – most of the real advances have only happened since 2000.)

This year, according to the new edition of Harden’s London guide, openings were not just a record but, in the words of the editor, “off the scale”. So, you'd expect the Sunday Times listing of the top 100 restaurants in the UK – also researched by Harden’s – to be dominated by the capital’s finest establishments?

Er, no. Just one of the top ten restaurants (The Ledbury) is in the capital. So if Harden’s analysis for the Sunday Times is right, it must be the breadth of the improving middle ground that's winning the capital plaudits, as the stratosphere is looking very thin indeed.

One possibility, of course, is that the Harden's survey is coming to the 'wrong' conclusion. Well, let's leave out the fact that it's the biggest, longest-established and most rigorously-conducted survey, and observe that Michelin finds only two three-star restaurants in the capital (far fewer than either Paris or New York), and note that most people would say even those two awards owe more to the fame of Messrs Ducasse and Ramsay than they do to the standards of the establishments involved. London, at the very top end, is indubitably lagging.

There, however, certainty ends. Here are some ideas, some inter-related, that might explain why London is – still – thin on top, by the standards of the great world cities.

1. It takes time. Perhaps the weakness at the top is just a function of the recently-rootedness of London's restaurant scene, which kicked off at least 10-15 years after New York's and, at least a century after the City of Light’s?

2. The market here doesn't really understand quality food. We may have Jamie, but London’s specialist food purveyors clearly still lag those of Paris, and possibly New York's too?

3. You can't get the ingredients. Michelin-obsessive Andy Hayler, who's visited every 3-star joint in the world, once assured me you just can't get the right stuff here, in the way you can in the Mediterranean countries.

4. There isn't the money here. OK, we can dismiss that one.

5. The money is here, but the sort of boring older (English) people who keep very grand restaurants going grew up in the 'old days', when quality dining out was something you only considered for your wedding anniversary. Perhaps that's why the Sunday Times list is stronger in country house hotel dining rooms – trip for the weekend, darling? – than capital temples of cuisine.

6. Unlike Paris, where continuity is king, and great establishments have time to mature, London is a 'commercial' city where things are always in flux. But surely so is New York… or so they always tell us.

7. Very grand dining is an anachronism no one really wants any more, and London has realised you can have a great dining-out scene without it.

I'm not, individually, persuaded by any of these, but collectively some or all of them perhaps provide the beginnings of an answer. If anyone does have the answer, or just another answer to add to the mix, please do comment!