Few men are better qualified to introduce a cocktail girl to the chic Manhattan drinking scene, than Sex and the City 's Mr Big. Even now, months after the supremely glossy TV series ended, Big remains the most current, most rampantly fancied archetype of alpha male. The definitive upscale society animal: a baggily handsome, cigar-wielding martini aficionado who only seems to exist in the half-light of wittily conceived, beautifully styled cocktail lounges. For Big, good tables in the most fashionable restaurants are only ever one phone call to a maître d' away; for Big, last-minute entry to the hippest, most exclusive bars is accomplished with a knowing wink at the relevant door whore. Who could possibly provide a better entree to New York's food and drink elite? No one!

Better yet, Chris Noth (whose surname, incidentally, rhymes with 'both', not 'moth'), Big's real life alter ego, has his very own bar in midtown New York! The Cutting Room must surely be distilled essence of Big, of the glittering demi-monde of Sex and the City. The zenith of style, with waiting staff of phenomenal beauty, frequented by hedonistic champagne-addled media powers and miscellaneous A-list celebrities. Clearly, I must go there.

It takes me a little while to land a date with Mr Big. Two-and-a-half months of waiting for him to return my calls, to be precise. OK, OK, when I say 'date', I actually mean 'interview', and when I say 'waited for Mr Big to call', I actually mean, 'waited for Chris Noth's restaurateur partner Steve's personal assistant Gwynne, to contact me via email.' But indulge me.

Finally, it happens. Gwynne mails to say Steve says Chris says yes to drinks! This is wildly exciting - until 24 hours later, Chris completely disappears, without arranging a time for our date. (Which is devastating, and yet so classically Mr Big in its elusiveness, I am almost titillated.) So. I have no choice but to fly to New York, and stalk the man until he gives in. Which I do. And after two-and-a-half angst-ridden days spent languishing in a boutique hotel in most fashionable SoHo, I am informed that Noth has flown in from LA a little earlier than originally planned so that he might grant me an audience at the Cutting Room. Gosh.

I get to the bar early (of course) and discover that Big - sorry Noth - is running late. While I wait, I nurse a Grey Goose vodka and tonic and attempt to intelligently assess my surroundings. Now, at first glance, and sans Noth, the Cutting Room is not what I had expected. It's located on West 24th street, which is a bit peculiar because - I had been reliably informed by Toby Cecchini, hip bar owner du jour and author of Cosmopolitan: a Bartender's Life - everyone knows that the cool boozing area of Chelsea ends bang on 23rd street. 'Any higher, and the hipsters say they're in danger of getting a nosebleed,' Cecchini told me. But, even if you ignore this kind of nit-picky fashion-crowd geography, Noth's bar is blatantly not the epitome of Big-inspired glamour. The Cutting Room is made up of two large, square, high-ceilinged rooms, both of which are deliberately dilapidated and cosily moth-eaten, all dark battered mismatched furniture, heavy velvet drapes and frayed upholstery. Higgledy-piggledy chandeliers hang from the ceilings. Old man's pub radiates from the rugs. The second room is dominated by a stage, on which - Noth's partner Steve explains - an impressive collection of musicians have 'jammed'. 'Sheryl Crow, Stills and Nash...' he says, swishing his long music-lover's pony-tail about. 'And Anthony Keidis from the Red Hot Chili Peppers is coming on Tuesday night.'

The bar and waitressing staff, though undeniably cute, are certainly not the collection of mindlessly beautiful aspiring actors and models I'd expected. And the clientele is essentially 40-something, casual and not remotely Carrie Bradshaw in aesthetic. Steve tells me that Chelsea Clinton has been here three times. 'So have the Bush girls, Russell Crowe, Nicole Kidman...' However, the stand-out punters right now are the two seven-year-olds who play cards on a low bar table to my left, and the small collection of elderly women in pant suits (who I'm guessing are here Big-spotting, not for the evening's burlesque entertainment which, Steve promises, will incorporate fire eaters and strippers).

Finally, Noth arrives. Not Sex and the City style in a chauffeur-driven limo, but on foot; he often travels by subway, it transpires. And not in sharpest black dry-cleaner fresh Prada either, but in a mid- blue suit, which is a touch rumpled and lived in. Noth's face is a bit rumpled and lived in, too. His manner is flustered and slightly annoyed. There's none of Big's slickness and sharpness about him. 'Hi,' he says to me, vaguely, then bumbles off to talk to Steve. He slips behind the bar and snaps open a can of Red Bull. Erm, Red Bull ? 'Too early for vodka,' he offers.

I watch him greet the people, flirt absent-mindedly with the bar staff, say hello to the ladies in pant suits. It's beginning to occur to me that Chris Noth is not Mr Big at all, but a 50-year-old actor with a good head of hair and a suspicion of a belly. Hmm.

After some to-ing and fro-ing, Noth re-approaches me. He sits down next to me on an overstuffed banquette. 'Hi,' he says, again. 'Cheers!' He takes a swig of Red Bull. 'Welcome to New York! Do you want to look at my jukebox?'

Chris Noth found fame, cultural icon status and sufficient fortune to open the Cutting Room through two major TV roles: Detective Mike Logan in the long-running cop show Law and Order, and Sex and the City 's Mr Big. He launched the bar five years ago, driven by a passion for premium vodkas ('Belvedere, especially,') live music and the city of New York, which he felt needed rescuing from invasion by excessively cool bars. 'In New York,' he explains, haltingly, reaching for the right words in a way Big never had to, 'erm, trendy is in. Bars are a tough business, people are looking always for the next trendy spot. It's part of the whole disposable culture. It's sad. We dispose of everything, of architecture, of... anything that is not instantly gratifying to us. I wanted to create something with roots, you know? And I wanted somewhere grown-ups could come and be comfortable. The night scene has become such a teenage scene all over the world. And I'm really pretty bored with all the popular spots that make money, but are completely not interesting or sexy.'

Which is all fantastically commendable, but I'm after juicier stuff. That's nice, I say, but Steve tells me the two of you went into the bar business after your accountant introduced you on the grounds that you both loved music and women!

'Did he?' says Noth, half guarded, half pleased. 'Well, bless him for that, the ol'...' He swaggers a little. 'Yeah, well, whatever. Anyway.'

Chris Noth has a certain reputation around women. Maybe because the press in general - and me in particular - have had problems distinguishing between the actor, and his on-screen counterpart's Lothario tendencies. Maybe because he has been a bit of a playboy at times. 'You know,' he says, leaning closer to me in a conspiratorial fashion. 'The British press practically accused me of shagging some girl [ex- EastEnder Tamzin Outhwaite, for the record] in the closet at the Baftas just because I was talking to her. London is full of naughty journalists. It means you can never have a spontaneous good time any more.

'If you're an artist or a celebrity there's always someone there waiting to bust you. Like in New York, in the Seventies, with Studio 54, people were wild! Because they weren't looking over their shoulder all the time, looking out for the paparazzi.' All of which, happily, can be arranged if you happen to own a bar. 'You can shut the doors, have a party, do what you like, no one's going to bust you!'

The Cutting Room, it seems, serves as Noth's own mini social empire, his very own Studio 54. He holds court here. 'Yeah. A lil' bit. Well, you know... we get a lot of actors coming here because of me. Any friends of mine will always say hi. John Corbett [Aiden, Big's love rival in Sex and the City] comes in, flirts with the waitresses. Actors. You know.'

Does it get truly wild?

'Huh?' Noth asks.

You know. (I nudge his arm.) Decadent.

'Ha! We try! The Saturday Night Live parties - we have them here - there's another one next week - they can get that way. But we keep that quiet. You know, with the new mayor, they arrest you for spitting. So if we get decadent, we don't tell anybody about it. We stay open late. We'll be here till seven in the morning. People get loaded, there's a lot of dancing that happens, and when people are making out in the corners, we know we're doing a good job.' He pats the banquette he's sitting on. 'Oh, if this couch could talk... ha ha!'

Do people dance on the bar?

'Yeah, we get that. Ha ha! We do get that.'

Does Noth ever serve behind the bar?

'Noooooo - well, maybe, but only if I get back there and help myself to booze'

A-ha! Evidence of genuine Big-influenced naughtiness is emanating from Noth! I pursue it to Dirty Martinis, preferred drink of the real Mr Big, maybe?

'I have a weak spot for a Dirty Martini. That's true. My phrase is: I'd like a Dirty Martini, three olives. Dirty... not filthy. I say: it's like sex. It should be dirty, not filthy.'

What makes a martini too filthy? I ask.

'Too much olive juice. It's a fine line. Just the olives.'

And sex?

'Harrumph! No comment!' Noth smiles a slow, deliberate, Big-like smile. 'And you know what else we have here? We have a drink called DTT. It's just vodka, Belvedere of course, straight on the rocks. DTT, it represents: Don't Tell Tara.'

Tara is Noth's girlfriend.

'It's for when I come here and I get smaaaaaaaashed. And I go: Raaaaaah, don't tell Tara I got drunk. That is a DTT.'

Chris Noth is not immensely forthcoming about the New York scene beyond the limitations of the Cutting Room. I want an address book, a list; I want to do New York, Noth style, but he's reluctant to make any solid recommendations.

'Ah, apart from here? Oh, it's all so Death by Trendy,' he says. 'Like the Meat Packing District, which is the hot place, it's just so boring and not sexy.' He likes Elaine's, he says, a restaurant run by a fierce 75-year-old who once ejected Jackie Kennedy and her dinner companion because she needed the table back. 'She said, "You broads don't have to work for a living, but I do. Move." It's an old writers' and journalists' bar on 2nd and 88th. The place isn't pretty, Elaine's not pretty, and she gives you a really hard time till she likes you. Ummm, there's a couple of cigar bars. That's like, the only place you can smoke in New York now. The Four Seasons. You might like that. The Carlyle. But that's a date place. That's somewhere to go and fall in love.'

He enjoys cooking he says. 'But in this town, there are too many places to eat out, so I don't do enough of it. I make a very good salad dressing.'

Are you shaping up to be the next Paul Newman?

'Paul Newman! He's great! I always put a little of his salad dressing in my concoction. Just a little. Oh, I love his lemonade.'

Noth rather fancies a little culinary brand extension of the Newman variety, he says. 'Yeah! I'd love to. I'd love to do something that would make a lot of money that I could give to a charity or an environmental... I just don't know if anything I could do would make a lot of money.' Mr Big's Dirty, Not Filthy Martinis in a can, maybe? They could work. 'You think? Ha ha! Dirty... not filthy. Hmmmm... OK, and also, well, I love Indian food. There are a lot of great Indian restaurants in this city.' He can't actually remember any by name, but assures me that's the case. Does he cook curries himself? 'No. It's something... I would like to get more acclimatised to cooking. I move around too much, sadly. But I think it's a very spiritual thing to do, to be closer to food, to serve people food. It's a very intimate thing.'

A statement of love, of nurturing?

'Yeah, it definitely is. I think so. Tara's learning, more and more. We haven't had a...' He mumbles something, which I misunderstand.

You haven't had a fight? I clarify.

'Fight? Oh, we're always fighting! Oops, scratch that! I didn't say that!'

Outside New York, he says he had a fantastically giddy time in Israel. 'Tel Aviv is wild, you know? They're out every night, hitting it hard there. I think it's the nature of their situation. They live very passionately. I don't know if that's a good thing, but they do... And I love, I love er, I love, well, Paris... I don't even know the names of places, but Paris is good. I love the bar at the Closerie des Lilas. It's small, but they haven't changed it a bit since all the writers in the Twenties went there. With the tiled floors... And the Hotel de L'Athenee in Paris, you know that?'

Plaza Athenee? Why, yes! It's the international cocktail lover's spiritual home.

'Yeah. We had a fun time there when we were shooting the final scenes of Sex and the City . It's a beautiful bar. I know in London, I love pubs. I go to the Coal Hole and have one in remembrance of Richard Harris, because I did urr, the movie Julius Caesar with him. I'm sure there are better pubs than that, but I love it, I always go. I love the name. I love pub crawling. I love to go to really old pubs. You'd better tell me a few.'

As I list the finest spit'n'sawdust type venues that my capital has to offer, it occurs to me that my date with Big/Noth has not panned out exactly as I hoped. My entree to Manhattan's coolest bars and restaurants seems far more interested in pork scratchings and real ale than glitzy, fashiony, Sex and the City -inspired decadence.

Chris Noth finishes his Red Bull, makes his apologies and leaves in the company of a couple of the pant-suited women. He flashes a final Big-like smile at me over his shoulder. I give him a few minutes, then trip off into the New York night, intent on locating the glossiest, hippest, most fleetingly fashionable bars and restaurants this town has to offer.

Chris Noth's bar, The Cutting Room is at 19 West 24th Street, New York (001 212 691 4065 )