Jan Moir Are You Ready To Order

In high summer, the heat presses down on Naples like a giant iron; hovering above the flat roofs of the city, pushing the heat into every crinkled street and square. To escape the high temperatures, whole families decamp to the islands for weeks at a time while the less fortunate drag chairs outside or sit on their front step, yearning for a breath of air or a cooling breeze.

Naples remains a place where life is lived on the streets, and in your face, with enormous gusto, where the natural anarchy that resides deep in the Italian soul seems riper and more concentrated than anywhere else, almost as if sun-dried. When local boy Fabio Cannavaro captained the Italian football team to victory in the World Cup last year, the whole city exploded in a spasm of fierce, primal joy.

One fugitive Camorra leader, tempted out of hiding to celebrate the win with his family, was promptly shot dead by rivals outside a bar. That's a very Neapolitan story; tragedy crimped with grim comedy and greeted by the fatalistic shrug of a people who have lived for centuries on the slope of an active volcano. You can't frighten them because they know what's coming. Everything written in the heavens, they say, must happen on earth.

Meanwhile, whole families pile on to a single Vespa and whizz past illegally, all without helmets. A law proclaiming that only buses, taxis and emergency services can drive along the city's tram lines is routinely and exuberantly ignored. Yes, it is true that busy areas of the city are infested with pickpockets and thieves but no more so, I feel, than in similar areas of London.

Today in the train station, Naples police are attempting to beat the crimewave by gliding around on Segway human transporters, trying not to mind the mortal blow to their Ferrari-loving machismo. And the fact that most tourists merely scurry through the city on their way to Pompeii or Amalfi only adds to the rackety allure of this great old port.

I love it here. I love the deep raspiness of the local accent and the way that even the tiniest gesture is imbued with such energy and drama. Like the way men pinch the thin cotton of their summer shirts then flap it around while blowing furiously through the lips and closing their eyes, as if in pain. This means: I am hot.

I love the way they swear, an incantation of bitter oaths that can last as long as the most heartfelt rosary. I love the food, which is fresher and simpler that the thick ragus and egg-rich pastas of the north, and pulses with its own vibrancy. Most of all, I love Da Dora, which is why I come to Naples in the first place.

Da Dora is a family-run seafood restaurant situated in a narrow alley which runs off the Riviera di Chiaia, where washing flaps on lines strung between the buildings, and housewives lower plastic buckets on ropes to take delivery of bread and groceries.

I can't claim to have discovered dear Dora, for photographs of customers such as Giorgio Armani and Anjelica Huston on the tiled walls bear testament to its celebrated standing in the city, although it somehow remains humble and unpretentious in every way.

The kitchen is always open to the street, where a huge charcoal grill is stoked and tended, ready for cooking the house speciality of simple grilled fish such as pezzogna, John Dory, bass or whatever else the fishermen deliver. Inside, the 30-seat restaurant is split into two tiny rooms decorated with nautical bric-a-brac and a rail of wooden coat pegs above tables laid with crisp white cloths.

Staff include the old lady who lives next door and who has been coming to help every night for more than 30 years, and a waitress straight from Napoli central casting, complete with inky whip of beehive hair, black eyeliner and a plunging décolletage.

There's a fab wine list and the bottles are produced in buckets brimming with shaved ice. The selection of seafood is always superb and usually includes platters of raw clams on spinach; plump mussels seasoned with white pepper; and no end of crisp fish, its edges lightly charred by the smoky grill.

Tonight we begin with neonata, the one-eyed anchovy larvae which Neapolitans are oddly enthused by, because, like Peter Pan, the poor babes would have more zest and purpose if they were allowed to grow up.

After this, here comes heaven; a golden fritto misto just to get you going, then each diner is given a china bowl containing a whole, young purple octopus, cooked until meltingly tender and served with no adornment except a splash of olive oil; brutal but perfect. Sweet, spiny lobster is slammed on the grill and also served plain, with lemon halves and packets of hand wipes, plus more wine from its icy tomb.

A guitarist appears and starts to play, accompanied by the powerful backstage operatics of one of the waitresses. I expect to see Signora Beehive sailing into the room in full voice, but, fabulously, it is the tiny old lady from next door who is doing all the singing, as she passes out plates of sauté di vongole.

Da Dora is just it for me, one of my best places on the planet. The food is delicious, while the place is simple but fun, and lodged fondly and for ever in my restaurant DNA. When dinner is over we step back into the sultry night where a red moon hangs low in the sky over Naples and a shadow begins to creep across my heart.

Tomorrow we must return to London, to the land of frozen fish fillets and waitresses who won't even smile, let alone sing. Will I ever see my darling Dora again? Oh, I do hope so.

• Da Dora, Via Ferdinando Palasciano 30, Mergellina, Naples. 00 39 081 680 519/660 762. Closed Sunday. Dinner for two, excluding drinks and service, £70.