Da Anna, Portonovo

Before we discovered Marcello's, we found Da Anna amongst the scattering of wooden buildings that line the shore around the bay. Further on towards the headland are smaller, scruffier boathouses and fisherman's huts. But this is the restaurant quarter of the beach. Da Anna is painted powder blue beneath an asbestos roof, with troughs of oleander below its windows. The lovely Anna takes things at a measured pace. In the late afternoon a man carefully raked the fine pebbles of the beach outside the restaurant, and tended to the parasols. At seven in the evening, as the shadows of the parasols lengthened across the shingle, the mainly Chinese staff sat outside the restaurant in what was left of the evening sunshine, eating. At seven thirty they were talking and smoking. At eight they unhurriedly began to open the restaurant, and we were the first eager diners through the door and into the vaguely nautical dining room.

First, garlicky, winey, chilli-spiced vongole, then crisply rustling fritto misto. You can judge a lot from a restaurant's fritto misto. The batter should be thin, crisp and very light; the misto may be squid, octopus, tiny fish, but all must be spankingly fresh. There may be courgette too. The fried morsels should leave hardly a trace of oil on the greaseproof paper and no aftertaste in the mouth. And there must be salt, and lemon; in quantity. Nothing else is needed. Like fish and chips, it's best eaten directly out of the paper. In Venice we ate a slightly sad version, served with salad. In Amalfi a better one, mainly of octopus. The very best exposition we've enjoyed is a few steps up the beach from Da Anna, at Il Laghetto, but this came a close second.

Down to earth, prompt service from a slightly swarthy waiter kept the place up to speed with the seemingly endless stream of customers that poured through the door like the tide had come in. Here a young couple gazing into each other's eyes. There a family with a young baby. Over there two young chaps who ate their pasta more quickly than anyone I've ever seen (apart perhaps from Alessio Villa's father in Assisi). At intervals an increasingly sweaty Chinese head would appear from around the kitchen door to check progress then disappear back into the kitchen, no doubt to report that the deluge continued.

As we left Da Anna, more diners squeezed past us through the door and yet more waited outside, good-humouredly, in the now chilly dark. The tide was still coming in.

Trattoria Da Anna, Via Portonovo, 60020, Ancona

Tel 071 801 343

No sign of a website I'm afraid. You'll just have to wander along the beach until you find it.