Birds of a feather

The last time I ventured into a nightclub of my own volition, pints of snakebite (with or without an added vodka) were the cognoscenti's cocktail of choice.

Recent forays have been made under duress. The evening I was to visit The Cuckoo Club - the London demi-monde's new hot destination, apparently, on the site of the notlamented Stork Rooms - I would have given my eye teeth to duck out. It's the most miserable part of the year: all I wanted to do was slump in front of Celebrity Big Brother's mesmerising dying gasps with a pile of toast and Marmite and a box of Laduree macaroons.

My antipathy was not helped by attempts at booking: though the Club's restaurant is open to nonmembers, I had to be 'vetted by the committee' for several days before they called to confirm. Since I always book under a false name - and since the committee is composed of the likes of Jefferson Hack, Nellee Hooper and Freddie Windsor - I entertained pleasant fantasies about a bunch of capital groovers and shakers hotly debating whether or not to let Elaine Paterson (last week's moniker) over the threshold.

There should be an etiquette guide for people like me who are over Stygian decor and music so loud that all the veins in your neck stick out like Deirdre Barlow, when all you're trying to do is have a nice chat. Like, is there a rule about arms? Is it written that, in posh totty nightspots, you're not allowed to wear sleeves? Apart from men, that is, who have to wear blazers. Since I went in my inevitable cardie, I felt like Father Ted's Mrs Doyle. And crossing Deirdre and Doyle results in nobody's idea of foxy.

Anyway, this isn't just the sour moan of the disenfranchised. I tell you all this because, to my surprise, I enjoyed The Cuckoo Club. I even stopped feeling superannuated when we spotted Nicky Haslam who, despite looking fortyish, is actually about 103.

Really, I thought as I sank into the experience, this is a great place to come if you're a slightly older type looking to cop off: the lighting is outrageously flattering.

Annoyed that I was having fun - great people-watching, comfy chairs, genuinely excellent service - I harboured a Schadenfreude-driven hope that the food would be rubbish. And, hush my mean-spirited mouth, it wasn't bad at all.

From the short, expensive menu, I searched for pratfall fodder. Risotto with black truffles: bound to be puddingy and reeking of truffle oil. But no, it was properly soupy, properly al dente, generously flecked with the promised fresh tuber. Chunks of rosy lamb lolled on some wintry roast vegetables -
parsnips, carrots, pumpkin - in a thyme-scented and vinous meat jus.

The date played it safe. 'The Cuckoo Club's own smoked salmon' was well-flavoured if a little flabby. Then the house hamburger with bacon and cheese. Why do nightclubs all have house hamburgers? Is it what the men in blazers want? Anyway, this was more of a girls-with-nosleeves-sized number with few distinguishing characteristics; chips, though, were home-made. So, oddly, the more elaborate stuff worked better than the 'safe' choices.

The owners describe their venue thus: 'Rock-chic, high style luxury and delicious decadence.' What we get is acres of flock, some chandeliers, a penumbral gloom and a ceiling of purplish bulbs that cast that benign blush but look as though they belong in a free-for-laydeez Bacardi Breezer joint in Romford.