Amy Winehouse and the Hawley Arms mob: the home of the 'Camden caners'

Forget the rehab clinic. Don't bother going to the V Festival. She's not there. When playing hide and seek with Amy Winehouse, there is one golden rule: check the Hawley Arms first.

Her husband, Blake Civil-Fielder, said this week, with as straight a face as possible, that his wife had rushed back from a drink and drugs clinic in Essex to collect a guitar. He failed to mention how she had also made a beeline for her favourite pub.

A couple of years ago the Hawley Arms was just like any other dusty bar in the musical hinterland of Camden Town, an anaemic cousin to landmark venues nearby such as the Dublin Castle, launchpad for bands such as Madness, and the Good Mixer, where Blur hung out in 1996 figuring out ways to get one over on northern rivals Oasis.

But an amazing transformation has taken place. Following a gastro-refurb, the installation of a jukebox, the distribution of some "I Heart the Hawley" postcards, the Hawley has the most fashionable leather couch in Camden on which to sit down and suck a Hoegaarden and lime. Tucked away from the High Street, it is suddenly a magnet for aspiring musicians in trilbies, hopeful fashionistas and networking twentysomething media types. The reinvention of the pub has almost single-handedly given birth to a whole new style tribe, loosely known as the Camden Caners but better perhaps described as the Hawley Arms Set.

Winehouse, 23, is such a regular she could be made its honorary life president. Her deputy could be Kelly Osbourne, a favoured drinking partner, or Peaches Geldof, another customer. The celebrity endorsements keep coming, though the punters hate comparisons made with the Met Bar, the hotel lounge where celebrities used to fall over themselves to get seen. They think there is a bit more grit to the Hawley.

You don't have to be in skinny-tight jeans and a washed-out T-shirt to drink here, but it helps. Indie haircuts are welcome, too – though customers will tell you that Winehouse's matty beehive and extravagant tattoos are to marvel at, not imitate. Everybody inside the Hawley looks vaguely familiar, as if they have presented a chart rundown on a subscription music channel. But if you see someone famous, don't stare. The pub doesn't want gawpers – officially.

Winehouse, who collapsed last week and has cancelled all her live dates for the rest of the month while she deals with "exhaustion", lives nearby.

The Mighty Boosh comedian Noel Fielding is a regular. Liam Gallagher and Nicole Appleton pop in now and then. Razorlight's frontman Johnny Borrell is a fan, courting Spiderman actress Kirsten Dunst with a few rounds. It was also in the Hawley, once known as a bit of a biker pub, that Alex Zane and Sadie Frost made public their romance.

Frost and Gallagher provide the overlap with the last time this part of London claimed to be the centre of the universe. She was a member of the Primrose Hill set, which made drinking in the leafy neighbourhood just over the canal fashionable at the end of the Nineties. Now though that gang is more likely to consist of young Labour shapers such as the Mili- bands rather than rockers. A similar trend happened further west, where the Notting Hill Set now best describes David Cameron's fresh-faced Tory thinkers.

Pete Doherty and Kate Moss have done their bit to attract messy haircuts to pubs in east London. But the gossip columnists are more likely to forget Hoxton – and the Met Bar for that matter – and head to Camden. The Hawley, and the prospect of a beehive bobbing up and down, is currently the best starting point for a story.