Down the not-so-humble pub

Of all the local 'customs' Madonna claims to have observed during her time in Britain, the thought of her supping pints of Guinness dahn the boozer is about the funniest. What next - jellied eels? Yet if it's an affectation, Madge is currently playing it to the hilt.

After her Brixton gig, she eschewed a draughty aftershow party in an East London warehouse in favour of an intimate lock-in at the Grenadier pub in Knightsbridge. She's also been spotted at the Scarsdale in Kensington and the Ifield in Chelsea, eyeing up the pickled eggs. Well, eating a poncey gastropub meal, to be more precise. But you get the idea.

Madonna, it seems, has fallen for the charms of sticky carpets, cosy corners, dodgy loos and endless trips to the bar - the type of good, old-fashioned British night out that was meant to have been seen off last decade by the painfully trendy 'designer' club bar.

In fact, it's more likely that Madonna's microscopically tuned pop-culture antennae have alerted her to the fact that there's now more going on in pubs than a quick ruck over what goes on the jukebox. The sodden back room of a certain community pub in South London gets rocked on a monthly basis by none other than those superstar DJs Basement Jaxx, while the Chemical Brothers recently packed El Dorado, a 150-capacity bar in Westbourne Grove, for a back-to-basics club night called Glint. Whoop Whoop, a frantic tech-house affair in Whitechapel, is rapidly gaining plaudits as the best night in London. The Beautiful Bend, an inventive and alarming club in the bowels of a King's Cross hostelry, recently got props in, of all places, Vogue.

When garroting-edge, fashion-and-art gazette Pop threw a launch party, it did so in the beery environs of the Bricklayers Arms in Shoreditch, where Jarvis is a local. Damon Albarn and Robbie Williams also, apparently, like nothing better than dropping in for a quick pint at the Portobello Star. Even Tony Blair is getting his round in - he took French President Jacques Chirac out for a pint last week at the County in his Sedgefield constituency.

Pubs have obvious advantages over bars for a good night out: cheaper drinks, cosier surroundings, less stroppy staff - all this and pork scratchings, too. However, most stars are so rich and cosseted that such benefits are negligible - they always get a seat and service with a smile. Pub culture, then, is an opportunity to get back to their roots, avoid the paparazzi and telegraph the message that they're not completely divorced from the common man. For Madonna, pubs probably seem as exotic as the Sanderson would to Jack Duckworth.

Yet it's all a million miles from pub culture as Jack would recognise it. For a start, most of these so-called public houses really aren't that public at all. Madonna didn't just stride into the nearest Firkin demanding Malibus all round - she took over a tiny pub in a tremendously posh bit of London and stuffed it to the gills with triple-A List celebrities. Glint is a strictly invite-only affair. As for Rooty (the Jaxx night) and The Beautiful Bend, if you don't know when and where they take place, you're probably not supposed to. The fact is, pubs like these allow celebrities to escape into an idealised pre-fame state, where everyone knows their name but no one wants to punch their lights out. Naturally, this involves banning anyone they're not completely sure of. Few celebrities (especially male ones) would risk a Friday night in your common or garden boozer; they'd be besieged by autograph hunters on the one hand, the local maniac on the other. While Blair and Chirac supped their beer, a placard-waving, egg-flinging crowd, protesting about everything from the price of fuel to BSE, surrounded the pub. For DJs like the Chemical Brothers, meanwhile, Glint wistfully harks back to a time before mega sales, Brit awards and record-company pressure, when they DJed for their mates, for fun.

Viewed in this light, the celebrity pub obsession looks a bit tragic. But that would be to ignore the plain fact that a messy night out in one of these venues is about the most fun you can have in London at the moment. While circulating invitations by e-mail to a favoured few is elitist, it's also classic clubbing principles; you don't want anyone there who's going to spoil your night. It also feels good to relax in traditionally British, scuzzy surroundings, unmenaced by moody bouncers or the Arctic blast of superclub air-conditioning. Look at it as the latest manifestation of a renewed self-confidence in British pop culture, and Madonna's interest doesn't seem that strange after all. So who's getting the peanuts in?

Alex Needham is features editor of The Face