As Sara Cox strolls up to the table, she's looking every bit as stylish as you'd imagine a Radio 1 DJ to look, with perfect make-up on. She says she doesn't usually wear a lot of make-up, because who's going to see you when you're on the radio? But today she is getting photographed with her glamourous morning-show guest, Beyonce Knowles and doesn't want to show herself up. It's an honest comment that makes her instantly appealing.
She's got a youthful grace; when she first arrives she bounces around, then leans against the pub balcony and takes in the scene. She is joking about the minders trailing after Beyonce, so we ask, does she herself have a PA? The answer is a firm no. "My girl mates are my minders. They stop people kissing me in clubs. I used to like it but now I'm like, 'No I'm married!'" Married, of course, to DJ Jon Carter. "He's always away," she says after a pause. "I forget what he looks like. He was in Russia last night!"
She sits down, and the chat quickly slides on to Glastonbury. "It was incredible. It was just me and Zoe [Ball, her close friend]. If I could safely show you my arse, you'd see it's covered in bruises. It was one of those occasions where you don't really find a comfy seat. It was me and Zoe like a two-headed noisy monster that just terrorised people."
We thought they'd be firmly shut in the VIP area but she explains: "I said to Zoe: 'We're not staying backstage. You could be in a beer garden in Croydon!'" So they just wore shades and kept their heads down and danced to the Streets.
When asked what music she liked she says: "I like hip-hop, I like a lot of dance music. If it's got drums in it. Tits and hips music basically."
We can't interview Sara Cox without touching on her breakfast show. How is she so very entertaining so very early in the morning? "Because I go back to bed," she groans, "unless it's a gym day." She must take really good care of herself then, but no, she says she's rubbish. She leans forward with a grin. "I've got loads of spots coming!"
She straightens up again and goes back to the question. "It's quite a buzz once you switch on the mike and you realise that you're talking to loads of people," she adds. "It's a bit of an ego thing. I adore that show, it's my baby. Whenever anyone else does it I can only listen to a few minutes of it." The only time she can't host her show is when she's abroad, or staying with her family in Bolton. She is the youngest of five. "I love them, but they drive me completely barmy."
Herself and Zoe Ball were labelled the pioneers of ladette culture, the idea that all young women guzzled beer at stylish bars and danced until dawn.
"It's annoying," she says. "If there's an article about women and liver disease then there'll be a picture of me and Zoe. I'm at work every day, I hold my life together - I'm not exactly waking up in the gutter."
So would you call being a ladette a feminist protest? "I think it was the opposite really, because it was suggesting that we had to be blokey. I'm really quite girly. The other day I opened up the Daily Star and there was a headline saying 'Whatever happened to foxy Coxy?', with a picture of me from years ago and a picture of me leaving work, looking like a trog, with my parka on. So now I've gone from being a ladette to being mumsy. Now the tabloids are complaining that I'm not drinking enough! You can't win."
Married and 28, she tells us she's not looking forward to turning 30. "Nineteen is a good age, and 24's good." Then she says something that would make sense to a lot of 16-year-olds. "School being the best years of your life is the biggest lie. You've got to blow that out of the water. One of thing that upsets me is when you get people harming themselves because they're worried about their exams. You can get through this bit and there's so much more out there."
"It's important to be yourself and do the best you want to do," she adds. "But school doesn't last forever. And that geography GCSE hasn't really come in handy."
So did she set her heart on DJing at an early age? "I was more interested in acting," she says. "Then I did some modelling, but things fell into my lap. It does scare me how lucky I am."
Are you the same in real life as you are in your radio persona? "It's a weird one," she says. "You're aware that you can't swear, and you're aware that children may be listening so you have to try for that Simpsons-esque thing where you're doing it on different levels.
"If things go wrong on air, I've handled them. The Ali G thing is the best example, where he said 'motherfucker'. If I'd said 'Oh hilarious, let's say it again', I'd have got into trouble, but because I did tell him off it was fine. I do take it seriously because you can't have things getting too rude. You have to control it."
Does she considers herself a role model? "I know that millions listen but you can't really get your head round it", she laughs. "What is nice is when people hate their jobs, or hate their schools, but when they get up you can make them chuckle, then that's a buzz."
"If I can be a role model for anything it's for safe sex." Cox is promoting the new Radio 1 campaign to remind young people about safe sex. "It's called 'Cover Mr Lover'. I went to a Terrence Higgins Trust dinner the other night, and I think there's very much a feeling among young people that they still need to be thinking about having sex safely."
She seems to be quite conscious of what younger people are going through. She brings up her own experiences. "I was bullied horribly at school, and I find those stories really upsetting. There needs to be some sort of national helpline or campaign that's purely about bullying. I was a victim of it for years and it is terrible. But I'm not sure where you'd start, because it's such a personal experience."
It seems to have been part of why she's achieved what she has. "I do get a lot of pleasure out of my job but one of them is definitely being able to go: 'Remember me? Remember shoving that ice cream in my face?'" She flicks two fingers at the imaginary tormentor.
So does she have any more ambitions now that she's conquered the Radio 1 breakfast show? "I've no plans for the future," she laughs. "I've never planned, so I don't want to break the habit of a lifetime."
· Sara Cox presents the Radio 1 Breakfast show weekdays 7-10am. Radio 1's Safe Sex Campaign runs 22nd to 27th July, see www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/onelife for details.
