You simply log on, find a restaurant, hunt for space and click ‘book’. Simultaneously that table you’ve just acquired is marked as reserved on the restaurant’s machine — so there’s no double booking and you get to walk straight in ahead of the queues.

Time and time again I wanted to do the booking by mobile.

Well Zagat, the well known restaurant guide, is the first to adopt OpenTable’s mobile booking system. And it makes a heck of a lot of sense:

“ZAGAT.mobi is the first mobile website to link to OpenTable’s new mobile service,” said Nina Zagat, Co-Chair of Zagat Survey. “ZAGAT.mobi is a one-stop shop for making informed dining decisions and then taking action.”

Zagat-Rated restaurants that are OpenTable partners will have a proprietary icon of a table and chair next to their phone number on ZAGAT.mobi which, when clicked, will open the reservation search box. OpenTable users simply choose a date, time and party size in order to find available tables and then make an instant reservation at the specified restaurant.

Done. That’s a winner! Remember zagat.mobi when you’re out and about. I’ll give this a go when I’m in San Francisco in September for CTIA.