Jan Moir Are You Ready To Order

La Fontelina must have one of the most beautiful locations of any restaurant, anywhere in the world. Situated at the foot of a 300-metre cliff on the south-east corner of Capri, it looks out over the famous Faraglioni rock formations and the sapphire glitter of the Mediterranean. The foam of the salty waves frill over half-submerged limestone crags, while the warm flutter of an ozone breeze is ripened by the scent of wild rosemary.To get here, you must either take the steep path down the cliff, with occasional agreeable shade provided by maritime pines, or do it the stylish way and arrive by boat. How you get here says something about how you have lived your life so far and, yes, that's right: I got a sunburned nose coming down that dashed old hill.

The restaurant structure looks ramshackle and slight, with a veranda made of weathered trunks lashed together under a straw roof, but look again and you will see a solid concrete building to the rear, housing a huge, professional kitchen. Inside, an army of cooks in white caps rattles shellfish in pans, plunges nests of fresh pasta into boiling water and dusts sugar over chocolate almond cakes pulled fresh from the oven. This isolated spot may look like the restaurant at the end of the world but listen, amici, we are in Italy, so no one's going home hungry.

On the dog-leg of tables that run through the restaurant, the napery is crisp, the glasses are polished and the all-male waiters are keen without being pushy. As soon as we are seated, they bring bottles of chilled water plus baskets full of crusty bread, grissini and taralli, tiny, hard-baked biscuits flavoured with fennel seeds or perhaps chilli. A few moments later, more treats: a small appetiser of crostini piled with sweet tomatoes blessed with a silver crucifix of fresh anchovy, plus a hot, puffy savoury fritter filled with fish.

You can order from the menu, or just ask what's good for lunch. Apart from the pasta dish of the day, there is always a selection of fresh local seafood, including pezzogna, kingfish, octopus, tiny clams and sometimes wild prawns.

For wine, there are chilled jugs of white sangria - the fruit helps to temper the coarse Caprese wine - or you can pick from an extensive list that has something for everyone, from a useful selection of Oltre Puiatti to magnums of Vintage Tunina.

To begin, we have the house antipasti. There are bowls of char-grilled artichokes, sweet peppers anointed with olive oil, spinach spiked with chilli and courgettes flecked with herbs. The choice is positively greed-making and everything is cooked so precisely that each dish retains its own beautiful texture and individuality. It is simple, but fabulous. Pasta is cooked to the second, best perhaps with their light, fresh tomato sauce so adored by S, or a pile of sweet and juicy clams harvested from the Bay of Naples.

Eating these, while sipping cold wine and looking out at the sun sparkling on the rippling, emerald sea, knowing that our pezzogna is quietly crisping under a grill back in the kitchen, must be one of life's great experiences.

Quite a few of the waiters are also fishermen, and they have an easy grace and quiet sense of self that is remarkable, in these seasonal, tourist-packed circumstances. Using salt, oil and the fragrant lemons that grow in abundance here, a waiter called Gaetano mixes a green salad dressing at our table. It is perfect. You could never tire of this. Or could you?

Out in the bay, the super-yachts of the mega-rich lie at anchor like a drift of milky icebergs, as the Fontelina tenders putt-putt over to their sides to collect guests for lunch. With tans like oak varnish and gem-encrusted watches slung low on hairy wrists, the lunching yacht owners are a breed apart: proud to be part of the ostentatiously wealthy fraternity where non-millionaires need not apply. So it's interesting to note their detumescence when the monster 370ft yacht, Le Grand Bleu - once owned by Roman Abramovich - silently hoves into view, so big that it instantly makes every other boat in the bay seem like a bath toy. Even its onboard helicopter looks like an ant on a soapdish. Cutlery is stilled for a moment or two. A few people laugh nervously .

"Where's my boat? I can't see my boat," an English voice suddenly cries from a nearby table. Listen, Popeye, I feel like telling him, if it's too small for you to see it, don't shout about it. Elsewhere, the tables are packed with brokers from New York honking down their cell phones to Jeff back in the midtown office, while their wives nibble rocket leaves and imagine they look like Lindsay Lohan.

If there is a downside here, it is perhaps that Fontelina in high summer is like Manhattan-on-Sea, with all the pleasure and terrible peril that such an influx brings. One moment you're savouring the delicious, moist flavour of the beautifully cooked pezzogna - a fish native to these parts, but most similar to gilt-head bream - the next you're fighting over a grilled courgette with some sun-dried dame from 65th Street. Has she even heard of a Scottish elbow before?

"Is that like, what, some kinda pasta?" No. It's like this. Whoomph.

Out in the bay, the big yachts circle like sharks while we eat spooky-looking lemon sorbets with strawberry eyes and fruit hats. The placid waiters keep on smiling, safe in the knowledge that they're on the rocks, but in a really beautiful way.

• Ristorante La Fontelina, Località Faraglioni 80073, Isola di Capri. 00 39 081 837 0845. Lunch for two with wine, £100. Open daily, lunch only, April-October, weather permitting.