What a thoroughly good Sport

Considering that I'd told my dinner guest we were going to eat in the Grill Room of the Dorchester, he was remarkably sanguine when I switched venues at the last minute and we went to The Sports Cafe on Haymarket instead.

It was, I explained, a far more manly destination than the Dorch. Moreover, it was cheaper and, unlike the Dorch, we would be able to watch televised sports, enjoy a game or two of pool, and perhaps even get involved a light bar-room brawl.

The Sports Cafe is one of the highlights of the Haymarket, vying with such cultural attractions as The Phantom of the Opera for the attention of the discerning man about town.

Happily, we had dressed appropriately for the occasion: wing collars, spats, top hats, tail coats. And as we strolled into the neon-and-telly-screen-lit interior of The Sports Cafe, the melodious strains of Handbag House gently assaulted our ears. If music be the food of love, then I am sure that we would have left with severe indigestion.

I liked The Sports Cafe immediately. A quite pathological care has been taken with the d?cor. Unlike many top London restaurants, The Sports Cafe has not been made over by David Collins. Nevertheless, I'm sure that Sir David would approve of such witty touches as the brace of baseball bats used as door handles on the handsome plate-glass double doors.

The sporting theme is stretched to the limit. For instance, a sports motorcycle is suspended above a dancefloor, and anything from a boxing glove, with accompanying mugshot of John Conteh, to a seven-inch single bearing the name of a football team, has been shoved in vitrines and bolted to the walls - much in the manner that priceless religious artworks of the Middle Ages are exhibited at the V&A.

I had booked a table in the name of my guest, Jeremy Hackett. It seemed fitting: the Chairman's eponymous gents' outfitters is the supplier of branded polo shirts to Britain's sporting yoof. If you are ever fortunate enough to stumble across a pitched battle involving Our Lads at a sporting event in a far-flung corner of the world, you can be sure that, in the thick of the fighting, one of the brave bulldog breed will be wearing a Hackett polo shirt stretched over a beergut.

When I mentioned our reservation, a smile crept over the greeter's face that led me to believe that a more casual reservations policy prevailed at The Sports Cafe than at the Dorchester Grill.

We were shown to a booth-like table in a gloomy dining area off the main bar. Each booth is equipped with a small television screen showing sports, complementing the broadcast on the larger screens hung randomly around the room. However, I was far more interested in the action at the bar, where a man affecting the headgear of Badly Drawn Boy, accessorised with a pair of wraparound shades, was holding court.

Occasionally, from his group of acolytes, a ragged cheer would go up and, at one point, it seemed that a fight would break out as one man bumped into another fuller-figured fellow, toppling him from his bar stool.