Is this really the hottest club in town?

ACCORDING to those in the know, Attica, a small and very exclusive club in Kingly Street, Soho, is the bee's knees right now. Forget about the Met Bar and Chinawhite: if you want to wiggle your bum next to Mick Jagger, Robert De Niro and P Diddy (Puff Daddy as was), or sip strawberry cheesecake cocktails next to Naomi Campbell, Donatella Versace or Nicole Kidman (the actress was last there only two weeks ago), it is the doorman at Attica you will need to sweet-talk.

Even so, if you do manage to wangle your way past the velvet rope - and this is a pretty tricky process because the bouncers are very big and very scary-looking - you may be in for a surprise.

OK, so a bottle of Absolut vodka will set you back 140, and in the ladies' loo you can choose between splashing Chanel No 19 or Acqua di Parma on your wrists. But in every other way you can think of, Attica is just like the nightclubs you probably visited as a teenager. And this, I suspect, is the real reason why everyone - from Kate Moss to Caprice - loves it so much.

Barely a day goes by without some soap star or other pictured leaving the club a little bit worse for wear. The other weekend, it was Jessie Wallace and Elaine Lordan, who play two of the Slater sisters in EastEnders, caught doing naughty high kicks outside its hallowed portals; last week, Michelle Collins had such a good time that she somehow lost her shoes along the way (other lost property found at the club includes a Rolex watch and a black American Express card).

In the Eighties, I was an embarrassingly frequent sight in the queues outside some of Sheffield's finest night - sorry, nite - spots: Cairo Jax, Maximillion's and, if we were feeling flush, Josephine's. These places were all the same: they had teeny weeny dancefloors, lots of mirrors (all the better to admire your latest purchase from Dorothy Perkins) and special deals on Cinzano and lemonade.

We knew they were a bit naff even then, but we loved them all the same: you could dance as badly as the girls from the Human League and no one would even so much as bat an eyelid.

Last Thursday night, as I listened to Smokey Robinson and watched groups of friends make complete idiots of themselves beneath Attica's slow-moving strobe lights, it was as if I was 16 all over again. Can you imagine anything more fabulous? Attica, which opened its doors just before Christmas and has been hot as Hades ever since, is hosted by a man called Chris Calarco, who looks a bit like Beppe from Albert Square. The formula is simple: good tunes rather than trendy dance music (according to Vogue, top-floor fillers include Pleased to Meet You by the Rolling Stones and Walk This Way by Run DMC); girly drinks (the strawberry cheesecake cocktails have whipped cream and cookies in them); and comfy leather banquettes.

THE club is tiny but disorientating, thanks to all the mirrors (at one point I got confused and walked into one of them - to my horror, Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders watched this happen) and its lighting effects are hardly sophisticated but, somehow, these things don't matter a jot.

They just make the thirty-something crowd feel cosy and loved rather than intimidated. The more famous thirty-somethings, meanwhile, are safe in the knowledge that no paparazzi are allowed inside so no one in the real world will ever see their dreadful sixth- form-style boogieing in the pages of a glossy magazine.

After a late feast in the adjoining Attica restaurant we had that delightful but sadly neglected Eighties combination, surf 'n' turf - my sister and I snuck into a party which, so far as we could gather above the din, was being held in honour of the American actor and director, Steve Buscemi. We couldn't see Buscemi anywhere but we did spot Celia Imrie (you know, the actress from Victoria Wood) and John Gordon Sinclair. This gives you some idea of the weird mixture of people Attica seems to attract. It was packed with lots of sexy young girls in Dolce and Gabbana and Gucci, but there were also a number of, shall we say, older men in dogtooth jackets and penny loafers, with tidy pepper-and-salt hair. Both parties looked as happy as Larry.

My sister, who is 21 and slinky as hell, loved Attica's beautiful bar - it is long, the staff are brilliant and it's easy to get served (though she may have been influenced by the fact that on Thursday night the drinks were free). For me, though, the best thing about the club is the little line that forms alongside the crowded dance floor. Those who don't dare squeeze on board, sip their cocktails at its edge like a bunch of anxious teenagers.

I am now planning a return visit to Attica with friends in tow. After all, who needs Crme de la Mer when this place exists? If you've turned 30 and you're tired of jigging around your sitting room when you think no one is watching, I can only recommend you give it a try. The fact that you might bump into Tom Jones or Kate Hudson on your way to the powder room is really just a bonus. The hot night is a Wednesday. If you can fathom the door policy, you've got nothing to lose but your frown lines once you get inside.

Promise.

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