Frankly, there's only one place in town they could have fallen in

AS ABBA'S Super Trouper comes to a close, someone requests Lady in Red by Chris de Burgh.

Couples throng to the famous dance-floor with its sparkly lights where Ari and Jackie Onassis once canoodled. The legendary barman Mohammad, dressed immaculately as usual in a starched off-white jacket like the steward on a Thirties cruise liner, tops up martinis for young regulars Lady Sophia Hesketh, Tom Parker Bowles and Alexander Spencer-Churchill.

Old Etonian interior designer Nicky Haslam sits in the Buddha room (the club's most coveted spot) with a couple of friends who look as if they're in a boy band, while Bunter (the Marquess of Worcester) spills his drink on an enchanting little thing called Alice.

From a table beneath a fine work by Sir Alfred Munnings, a couple make their way to the dance-floor. Jude Law and Sienna Miller are already smooching there and are soon joined by James Tollemache with Arabella Musgrave and Lord John Somerset with the eye-wateringly sexy Rose Hanbury.

Lord Freddie Windsor, dancing like a trapped squid, makes for the prettiest girls.

Our couple go for the clinch, then sneak a kiss.

Hugh Grant and Jemima Khan snog at last, and what better place to do it than the theatre of naughtiness that is Annabel's nightclub.

Everyone is far too discreet to raise the slightest eyebrow - although several friends of the couple tell me it "was only a matter of time before they got it on" - but when Hugh and Jemima climb the famously slippery steps out of the club and into Berkeley Square, the paparazzi show no such restraint.

The sight of the couple scooting surreptitiously from Annabel's after a tryst was a seminal moment for them and the club. The pair have known each other for years and were actually introduced by Grant's ex-girlfriend Elizabeth Hurley, among others. But there has always been a frisson. They couldn't keep their eyes off each other at Elton John's white-tie and tiara ball last year, but it was to Annabel's that the couple finally repaired last month for that dance- floor smooch.

"There have been many sexy dances on that sparkly floor," says a man who should know, Tatler editor Geordie Greig.

The appearance of Jemima and Hugh marked a return to form not only for Annabel's but, most encouragingly, for the art of naughtiness. Annabel's, which has been considered pretty naff in recent years, has reclaimed its position as London's most influential arena for courtship, dalliance and mischief. The young are coming in their droves, they are snogging like gibbons and Jemima is the key.

"The reason Annabel's was so successful in the Sixties was that everyone was in love with Annabel Birley," says Kate Reardon, one of Jemima's closest friends. "Now everyone's in love with her daughter."

It's true, of course, that even girls want to sleep with her. It is a serendipitous replication of the sexy allure that surrounded her mother.

"The Goldsmiths are all attractive, intelligent and glamorous," says Greig. "They have very charismatic DNA."

That Jemima is a beautiful woman released from the shackles of marriage and is now ready to play makes her allure even greater.

To observers, Jemima is now London's sauciest pied piper who, rather ironically, far outshines her predecessor, Hurley. Jemima and Hugh together are a social tour de force that has not been seen in the capital for years.

A beautiful and sexy billionaire's daughter with an avalanche of aristocratic connections and Britain's only fully-fledged film star. It's social fireworks, and wherever they decide to canoodle others will follow.

Their very public clinch - at least in the rarefied world of London society - was the realisation of a brave prophecy made last year by Robin Birley, son of the club's founder Mark Birley, on the the 40th anniversary of London's smartest nightclub. "We want to make it like it was when my father started Annabel's," he said.

"Back then, it was glamorous and it was the only place in town. I want to make it sexy and young again."

Few thought London's libidinous beau monde would return to the underground haunt where once imperious dukes and playboys crept under tables to ping the knicker elastic of "delightfully pretty things". But those who thought there was more chance of seeing the Queen in an Aberdeen Steak House than getting young, sexy types into Annabel's were mistaken.

The irrepressibly spick and span Old Etonian Mark Birley and his wife Lady Annabel Birley (who later married Sir James Goldsmith and is Jemima's mother) set up Annabel's at 44 Berkeley Square, underneath John Aspinall's Clermont Club, in 1963. Birley, interior designer Nina Campbell and architect Philip Jebb transformed a windowless basement into a grand country house with a dance-floor.

The son of society painter Sir Oswald, Birley has one of the finest private art collections in London.

There are HM Bateman cartoons, works by Augustus John and Landseer and plenty of references to his beloved whippets. It's Chatsworth drawing room meets Armani yacht.

High jinks and smooching has always been a mainstay at Annabel's.

"I was coming down the stairs after a big win at Aspinall's with a friend when we were intercepted by two nuns," recalls playboy Taki Theodoracopolous.

"One of them stopped and started giving my friend a blowjob. I was shocked - I'm very religious man, you know."

Viscount Hambledon, the WH Smith heir and former escort of Princess Margaret, was often found Cossackdancing on tables for a coterie of leggy girls.

But during the Nineties Annabel's lost its mythical edge. It simmered away, catering for the odd wrinkly playboy such as Kerry Packer who, if tempted to slip under the table, would most likely remain there for good, but there was no new blood, no raffish young boulevardiers or slinky girls frotting in the Buddha room.

Part of the reason they stayed away was inverted snobbery. They didn't want to dress up ( Annabel's demanded a suit and tie) and would rather be in a pub drinking pints and eating pies, pretending to be common.

Last year Robin and his sister - painter India-Jane who also wanted a "return of a bit of naughtiness" - set up a secret committee to get young things to Annabel's. Mark Birley has handed the day- today running of the club to his children.

THIS clandestine group included writer William Cash and Elizabeth Hurley. To some extent, the efforts of Hurley paved the way for her ex to tickle his fancy at Annabel's.

The singles scene is now ravishing and exhausting. Regulars include socialite Lady Eloise Anson, The Hon Daphne Guinness, Aeneas Mackay, Lady Antonia Fraser's son, Orlando Fraser, Fritz Von Westenholtz, society DJ John Lycett Green, interior designer Tara Bernard, Tara Palmer-Tomkinson, party organiser Luca del Bono, Izzy Winkler, Harry Stourton, Will Astor, actor Johnny Standing's daughter India, Nina Campbell's daughter Alice Deen, Chloe Delavigne, daughter of the great lothario Charles Delavigne and Amber Nuttall.

"People have been obsessed with finding the next big thing," says Nuttall, who once worked at the club and got all her friends to come. "Annabel's has always been here. It just needed re-igniting and Jemima has done that. It's the only place in London to which no girl will ever refuse an invitation."

Some members of the so-called Notting Hill Set of young Tories are also joining in, such as David Cameron and Boris Johnson, and Nat Rothschild holds a monthly dinner there for his Russian friends and clients.

The young are now holding parties in Annabel's, something they wouldn't have dreamed of doing five years ago, and they're "getting off " with each other as if it's a school disco.

Recently, Jemima held her 30th birthday party at the club (Hugh attended, Imran didn't), her brother Ben celebrated his engagement to Kate Rothschild there, Freddie Windsor and society fixer Harry Becher held a joint birthday party there and Zac Goldsmith hosts poker evenings.

A glossy Annabel's magazine is even in the pipeline and will be launched later this year to coincide with London Fashion Week, when the club will host catwalk shows. Society actress Camilla Rutherford will be on the cover.

"It's very exciting. People now realise that Annabel's is much more sophisticated and seductive than anything else in London," says Quintessentially founder and club regular Ben Elliot. It's true, no one will vomit over you and there are no footballers in a roped-off area pulling girls from Surbiton in the hope of taking them back to the Grosvenor for a roasting. "It's a bit wicked and naughty, but it's not disgusting," says social arbiter Victoria Mather.

The new Annabel's can cause some confusion. "I went the other night as Mark's guest and thought the rules had changed so you could wear smart jeans, but you can't," says writer Sarah Standing. "Luckily I had a longish coat over them, so I took them off in the loo and did a Sharon Stone during dinner." That's the spirit.

"Somehow a first kiss always tasted better there," says writer Vassi Chamberlain. "There's something about the first bars of Lady in Red that get me every time."

They obviously get to Hugh and Jemima, too.

(c)2004. Associated Newspapers Ltd.. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.