Return of the terrible twosome

The battle is on between two infamous London institutions which were once the wildest nightspots in town.

The Embassy and the Stork Clubs are both due to open before Christmas. So it's cocktail shakers at dawn on Regent Street and the champagne generals leading the charge happen to be former business partners.

On the blue banquette, we have Mark Fuller, former owner of Sugar Reef and Red Cube, best mate of the rockerati. And on the red banquette, it's Marco Pierre White, the fiery chef who now owns 11 restaurants, with Piers Adam, of Rock and Kabaret fame.

By an odd coincidence, both sides are loudly proclaiming that their clubs are going to be "the new Tramp". The Stork will become a "Younger Tramp for Euros", according to its PR, "people like Tim Jefferies". Meanwhile, Fuller is aiming for a "younger Tramp for the kids of the rockerati - members already include Elizabeth Jagger, Leah Wood, Kylie, Liberty Ross, Kate Hudson and Tim Jefferies." (Obviously, Jefferies is in for a busy 2002.)

It must be said that Fuller's target clientele is slightly different from those that inhabited Sugar Reef - where you frequently bumped into Geri or Posh and Becks in the loo, or Red Cube, where Man United's Dwight Yorke fell for Jordan.

In their time, the Stork and the Embassy were far more risquÈ than Tramp, although both have been long forgotten. Marco Pierre White found the Stork Club one night when he stumbled upon a sleazy hostess joint on the corner of Swallow Street ... he immediately thought of Piers Adam.

The Stork was once a popular hang-out in London for rich men who fancied slumming it in a club where they would be surrounded by what were politely known as "model/actresses". When nightclub king Al Burnett was in charge in the late 1950s, Harold Macmillan could be spotted at the Stork along with John Profumo, Peter Sellers and Frank Sinatra.

You were likely to find yourself sharing the tiny 200-capacity room with Lana Turner, Bette Davis or Ava Gardner, despite frequent police raids. Elizabeth Taylor liked it so much she brought along four of her husbands - separately.

"King Hussein of Jordan goes there when he's in London," Burnett boasted at the time. "He jumps on the stage and takes over the drums. Jean Simmons always takes off her shoes and dances with me in her stockinged feet, but that's nothing compared with what some of my customers do."

Mark Fuller felt an even greater affinity with the Embassy, no longer in its original Old Bond Street premises, which was known as "Britain's first 'try-sexual' club". He used to manage the club in the late 1970s, when it was as wild as Studio 54.