Good food is important and we have all had our disappointments eating in restaurants abroad over the years. To get the best out of a destination, a little advance planning can ensure a great trip with good food too.

Finding good restaurants on holidays and for business travel is much easier than it used to be, with reservation services such as OpenTable and The Fork. OpenTable was established in the US nearly 20 years ago and is now part of the Priceline Group.

It launched in Ireland last month and already a substantial number of restaurants have joined the service, which is also available in 20 other countries, including the UK, Canada, the Caribbean, Dubai, China, Japan, Germany, Portugal, Switzerland and Australia.

OpenTable can be downloaded as an app to your smartphone. It can also operate in a multi-language environment and translate, as well as guide you to your restaurant.

Reviews on the OpenTable website are written by diners, and they must have made a reservation on the site. The restaurant also confirms that they have eaten there.

In Europe, the website TheFork.com or LaFourchette.com in French, is useful for making reservations in France, Belgium, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Spain. Not all cities are available yet, but the main ones are there.

TheFork also run promotions and discounts for diners and the opportunity to collect points when you make bookings. There are other reservations services and apps starting to appear, such as resy.com, reserve.com, Table8, Freebookings and Urbanspoon by Zomato.

Tripadvisor is also a good place to look for restaurant suggestions, but you should take into account that the varying budgets of travellers will affect a restaurant's position in the top 10, 20 or 30. The Top 10 list for Dublin at the end of October contained one restaurant with a Michelin star, one cafe, two sister restaurants, three fine dining venues, a steakhouse and a Brazilian restaurant.

jscales@irishtimes.com