Welcome to Madonna's London

Next time you are sipping a glass of Kabbalah water at Madonna's place, check out her front room. Does something seem vaguely familiar? Where have you seen that soft, pale blue wash, that black leather floor? Well, if you've been to the

"Yes, I guess it was inspired by the Blue Bar. I just love the way they designed that room. I just had to recreate it for myself," Madonna told Elton John's boyfriend David Furnish. It's just more proof, if more were needed, that Madonna is a genuine London-lover.

Of course, the capital has no shortage of glitzy, smoky, celeb-packed parties, restaurants and bars for resident pop idols to hang out - think of Mario Testino's National Portrait Gallery opening, the Turner Prize or the Sargent Cancer Care at the Sanderson hotel, all of which she attended.

But what she really prefers seems to be just the opposite. She appreciates London's quieter corners, its hushed, opulent hotels, local restaurants and undiscovered boutiques - the nooks and crannies where she knows she'll be left alone.

When she arrived at the Berkeley Hotel for a book launch to find a crowd of paparazzi, she knew the PR would whisk her out via the back entrance.

"She likes her privacy," says one regular. "She usually just sits up at the bar with Guy, quietly chatting. Once she waited 40 minutes to get a table." You're just as likely to see her in the Windsor Castle pub on Campden Hill Road in Kensington, where she went before the premiere of Mean Machine. "I love to take a walk to a nice pub for a pint of Guinness," she says. "There's just no way I could do that in America."

Others tell of similar behaviour. Who would guess that Madonna has been taking "Lola" (Lourdes) for lunch at Cafe Med on Kensington Park Road? "Guy used to come in all the time," says the former owner. "He used to sit on the sofas every afternoon and have a coffee and talk about films - everyone thought it was bullshit. He said he knew Madonna - then she started coming in regularly. We built the bar next door and she used to come round in the afternoon with the kids. She was always very healthy - she always had her peppermint tea. We saw them as a family."

The more hidden away, the better - apparently, she avoided 192 after one embarrassing occasion when she popped in for a drink and "there was a stunned silence and then a scramble for autographs". However, Da Mario's, the archetypal pizza restaurant on the Gloucester Road where she goes with Ritchie, her friends or sometimes alone, is used to celebrities - Princess Diana was a regular - but it's not on the tourist trail.

She also loves the Parisienne Chophouse in Knightsbridge, while another favourite is Olivetto on Elizabeth Street in Pimlico. "She goes once a week while she's in London. She thinks the pizza is the best in England," claims one acquaintance. She is fond of Italian, and her other favourite restaurant is Cecconi's in Mayfair (designed by great friend David Collins), where she recently asked the staff to cut up her rack of lamb, and serve it with creamed spinach and a blood orange Bellini. "She always dresses up - she was wearing a white coat-jacket and fantastic white stilettos," says an admirer. She and Guy are great friends with Marco Pierre White and his wife Matti, and Mirabelle (where, incidentally, she never has to pick up a tab) is another regular dinner venue.

But even if they are quiet and intimate, her venues of choice are plush. Her most recent discovery is Caviar Kaspia , a discreet restaurant off Berkeley Square. Madonna is a self-styled caviar addict and was introduced to the place by her friend Trudie Styler. "She tried a vast variety," says a fellow guest, "but particularly liked the most expensive house speciality, the Golden Oscietra." Other regular hangouts are the new Rivoli Bar at the Ritz ("she had something stiff - she was very charming," recalls one of the staff), and Claridges' Bar , again designed by David Collins. Both are opulent in the extreme, but exclusive.

Home House in Portman Square, a venue that could have been designed by Gianni Versace, has been, appropriately enough, a home from home - it is near her Marylebone house, and she often works out in the gym. In fact, she seems to have a penchant for hotels, perhaps because she has spent so much time in them. She also loves the Sanderson on Berners Street (where Guy and a pregnant Madonna famously refuted rumours of a split by kissing and cuddling at a charity event), and likes working out in the Agua spa. To ensure privacy, she will take the top floor of the Elemis spa in Lancashire Court and share a treatment with a friend (her favourite, the Royal Thai Ceremony for two, costs £700 for four-and-a-half hours).

Madonna may prefer the hushed, monied ambience of London's older restaurants, but she is not above a bit of high-maintenance divaism. At Rules recently, one of the capital's oldest restaurants, and famous for its game, she complained that there was nothing on the menu she could eat and moved tables twice. At the end of the evening she and Guy apparently left a £13 tip on a £278 bill. When she stayed at the Berkeley during her Drowned World tour, she upped sticks and moved to Claridges at 4am, claiming the air conditioning didn't work (the manager insists there was nothing wrong with it).

Entertaining Madonna can also be difficult, as various dinner hosts have discovered. The story goes that Madge has stringent dietary requirements, and that security men come round beforehand to check out the venue. Claudia Schiffer and Matthew Vaughn have apparently evolved a clever strategy to get round the dietary issue and order in from Nooh Jahan off the Old Brompton Road when the Ritchies come round.

Madonna herself isn't always so considerate to her dinner guests (who include Trudie Styler and Sting, Gwyneth Paltrow, Stella McCartney and Rupert Everett, chef Ed Baines and Piers Adam, Alisa Green and Stephen Marks - plus assorted yoga gurus). At her wedding at Skibo Castle, she served haggis, a dish Miss Paltrow refused to eat. "I don't even know what it is," she was overheard saying.

And Madge is as particular about her five-year-old daughter Lourdes's diet as she is about her own. Her friend Rosie O'Donnell admits, "No junk food for Lola. But when that girl comes to my house to visit for the weekend, forget it! She leaves here a totally different child, a candy bar-eating, MTV-watching, spoiled little kid".

For clothes, Lourdes likes What Katie Did on Kensington Church Street. When she's tired of off-the-peg, she visits Stella McCartney, who knocks up miniature versions of mum's outfits. Little Lourdes even has her own designer, Deborah Bunn, founder of Bunny London at Oxford Tower Wharf. "She is the only client I have who gets her clothes at the beginning of each season," she says. "She only wants unusual dresses and the newest designs. Everything has to be hand-made and she loves bright vintage fabrics."

Lourdes also likes Eve Lom facials, manicures at mummy's hairdresser Daniel Galvin and Miss Molly children's make-up, available in Harrods and Harvey Nichols. She has already reportedly been put down for posh boarding school Cheltenham Ladies College, but in a mere decade she'll be hitting London's hot spots herself.

Now there's a scary thought.