Bright night for China White

Every Wednesday night, a small part of Air Street in Piccadilly is transformed from an unassuming, moderately busy London nightspot into sheer pandemonium.

If you can manage to push, bribe or beg your way past the throng, television crews and burly bouncers, you'll find yourself at the threshold of China White, currently London's most celebrity-packed nightclub.

Not since the days of Manhattan's Studio 54 mania has a single nightclub witnessed such a consistent flush of A-list stars. Only a couple of weeks ago, Liza Minnelli was celebrating her recent marriage to the entertainment impresario David Gest, by partying at China White with NBF Martine McCutcheon until the early hours of the morning. Prince Andrew and Prince Albert of Monaco are regulars and both Chelsea Clinton and George Clooney have strutted their stuff on its dark teak dancefloor.

So what is it about this nocturnal haven that has celebrities forfeiting their dinner dates at Nobu in order to make it into the VIP queue by 11pm (thus ensuring entry)? It certainly isn't trendy, and you won't find Luella Bartley hitting the dancefloor in her cowboy boots and shaking her stuff to Kraftwerk. The music is awful, the drinks prices exorbitant and the entry process humiliating. But it is China White's ability to transport a generous slice of Eurotrash to the heart of London's West End that goes some way to explaining its extraordinary celebrity pulling power.

Much of China White's character lies in its location. It is positioned half a mile away from Leicester Square's footballers' haven, Red Cube; just around the corner from Kabaret and other of London's hipper, more sartorially clued-up watering holes; and not more than a £5 cab ride from the moneyed environs of W1's Mayfair.

The club's strength lies in its ability to attract the velvet-rope veterans while still pulling in the minor Royals. The result is a VIP room that includes EastEnder's star Michael Greco and footballer Stan Collymore sharing Thai spring rolls and honey prawns with Freddie Windsor, Prince Albert and Robert Hanson. Over on the dancefloor, playboy restaurateur Mogens Tholstrup chats to Jordan, while she sips the vodka cocktail which is the China White house special. Add to that heady combo a couple of professional kiss 'n' tell girls and the regular appearance from a major A-list Hollywood star and you've got a weird but winning formula.

China White is owned by Rory Keegan, who has a good-looking, ageing rock-star quality. The club's interior is a veritable Aladdin's Cave, warm and womb-like, with a darkness that only adds to its already lascivious d?cor. The main room has a bar, dancefloor and split-level Balinese seating, and acts like a sort of decadent stage on which London's most extrovert socialites strut.

China White's interior is modelled on the lounge-style clubs of LA and New York, otherwise known as "horizontal bar culture"', and one of its private ante-chambers, the Wu Wu Room, is a blood-red boudoir with half of the room laid up as a bed and strewn with silk cushions and soft Sumatran rugs. The lavish bathrooms have tasteful stone basins and garnet floors. But it is the notoriously impenetrable VIP rooms (the Mao Room, a glossy black temple to Mao Tse Tung hidden at the back of the main room and adjacent to it, and the Octagon Room, in which 14 privileged occupants are presided over by a stone Buddha head) that you really need to make it into if you're going to enjoy the full China White experience. Don't even think about going to China White on a Saturday night though (you may as well visit St Tropez out of season). Anyone even remotely clued up club-wise knows that, in London, it's Attica and Kabaret on Thursdays, Ten Rooms on Friday and China White on a Wednesday.

There's no denying that one of the club's prime attractions for male celebrities is its high quota of scantily clad and nubile young things who wear last-season Julien Macdonald and can't think of anything they'd rather do than listen to famous footballers bitch about being kept on the bench. When the Manchester United goalkeeper, Fabien Barthez, was dumped recently by Linda Evangelista he found solace in the arms of a busty blonde at China White. His antics also saw him fined £40,000 by his manager, Alex Ferguson, after he was spotted leaving the club at 3.30am on a work night.

Another pull is the club's US-style service. All the tables are "reserved" for any celebrity or sheikh who shows up unannounced. From time to time, I've had the misfortune to witness an inebriated nightclub civilian try to claim their right to the club's sacred seating area. They are repaid with a swift talking-to and humiliating ejection from the club by one of its scarier security men. Although China White is famous for its celebrity clientele, the backbone of its business is people who spend money, hence the high quotient of oil-rich Arabs. If you're a star, by contrast, everything is laid on for you.

One of China White's most memorable recent soirÈes was a party it threw for Hugh Hefner's 75th birthday at the end of last year. One of Hefner's Playboy team must have sounded out the place and spotted instantly how easily it would accommodate the legendary stud's rabbit-warren full of bunnies. Mayhem ensued outside as journalists, celebrities and ordinary punters fought tooth and nail to get past the doormen. The evening confirmed China White as one of the most accomplished clubs when it comes to its own myth-making (the sad reality was that Hef stayed for a mere 20 minutes, leaving lots of dweebish males salivating over the high quotient of Pamela Anderson lookalikes).

Of course, if we're being honest here, the real reason celebrities flock to particular nightspots and bars the way they do is because other celebrities tell them to. At China White there is only one cardinal rule, and it is this that sorts the As from the Bs, Cs and Ds. The important thing is where you place your Versace-clad derrière once inside the aforementioned current hotspot. The location of your table is as significant as where you sit on an aeroplane. There are only two ways to turn - left or right - and unless you want to commit social suicide, don't ever turn right.

Sara Buys is the Arts Editor of Harpers & Queen.

China White is at 6 Air Street, W1 (020 7343 0040).

Clubbing: what's on, where