A pizzeria is by definition a cheap and cheerful affair. All over Italy they are plentiful, clean, bright and plain. Their purpose is to provide a simple staple that happens to taste good, but is none the less pretty plain fare. A pizzeria is a place with no pretensions. Until McDonalds arrived in Italy, pizzas were regarded as fast food - a quick and simple meal available when either time or money was short.

Somewhere in the mists of time an inventive cook took some left-over dough and whatever bits of cheese and meat were available and created a pizza. There are frescoes in Pompeii depicting what look like pizzas, so its history is long. It has a pedigree of simplicity; the word, incidentally, is Italian for 'pie'. Simple as it is, it can be a real treat when done well and perfectly vile if done badly.

The village in Italy that I call home is famous for two things: a miracle site dedicated to the Baby Jesus, and Maurizio's pizzeria. I'm not entirely sure why thousands of people come to the miracle site, but I know why hundreds come from miles away for Maurizio's pizzas. These are pizzas as they ought to be: a thin crust made with good dough, fresh top-quality fillings and the whole lot cooked in a wood-fired brick-domed oven. When you've tasted a pizza like this you tend to find American-style pizzas a poor imitation.

I had arranged to meet my son Rocco in the Shelbourne so that we could go out and sample a Dublin pizza to see how it compared to Maurizio's. We'd settled on Milano's in Dawson Street as I've been there a few times and have always enjoyed it. But before I went to meet Rocco, I was at the Bridge Gallery where my old friend Tom Haran opened his exhibition of paintings of Saint Patrick's Festival. A few friends there, sipping wine and looking at the paintings, muttered something about joining us later for a pizza, but I didn't take it too seriously.

Milano's is busy - very busy. It's one of those places that won't let you book, so you just turn up and hope for the best. I had naively thought that by arriving before eight o'clock we'd avoid the rush. Ha. We were met at the door by the seating manager and were told that it would be half an hour until we could get a table. I said 'Great, we'll go for drink and be back in thirty minutes.' She said 'No, you have to wait here.' I looked around and saw all available waiting-room sofas full. 'Do I have to stand here for thirty minutes?' I asked. 'If you wait a moment I'll take you to the other seating area.' she offered.

Milano's is also big. At the back of the large dining-room is the kitchen where if you're so inclined, you can watch the chefs preparing your pizza. Beyond this is another waiting area and beyond that again another dining-room. After a twenty-minute wait we were shown to a table. The menu lists a long selection of pizzas which range from classical toppings like Capricciosa, Quattro stagioni and Margherita to Milano's own inventions like Veneziana and Fiorentina. These last two are trade marks and made me wonder how you can register an adjective for your exclusive use. The pizzas range in price from £3.90 to £6.95 so they're pretty good value. I chose a Capricciosa and Rocco chose the Quattro stagioni, which are both well-filled pizzas. They also do side-orders of baked dough-balls, garlic bread, mozzarella and tomato salad or a plain side salad to supplement the pizzas.

The wine list is like me, short and Italian. It's priced very reasonably and I chose the Frescobaldi Chianti which was listed at £11.95 - a good wine for the money. I had just decided that no one was going to join us and allowed the spare chairs at our table to be taken away, when we were joined by rock-widow Kathy Gilfillan and business seminar organiser Jane Stephenson. Before long we had four chairs again and the first two pizzas arrived.

If you're in Italy and you order a pizza the first thing you do is look at the underneath. This will tell you how it's been cooked. It should be light brown and crisp, and if it's been cooked in a wood oven it'll have tiny grains of semolina sticking to the underside. Looking underneath Milano's pizza I found a crisp well-cooked base that looked and tasted just as it should. And another thing I liked: the topping of my Capricciosa was exactly right - not something close to or vaguely reminiscent of the classical topping. Rocco's quattro stagioni, or four seasons, was just as good.

Then our table of four turned to a table of six, as Tom Haran, flushed from the success of his exhibition and Chris Rowley, a fellow artist, came to join us. Although Milano's was incredibly busy, the waiters and waitresses were helpful and efficient, finding more chairs and getting the orders of the new arrivals taken quickly. By this time I'd eaten my pizza and was feeling that all was well with the world. Looking around me I started to take in my surroundings. The chrome-framed seats with leather bases were comfortable enough, the black marble-topped tables were simple and attractive, the walls were decorated with rather good prints all with an Italian theme: old maps and engravings predominated. Without looking like an Italian pizzeria it has all the igredients of simplicity, easy atmosphere and low prices that make a pizzeria work. It's turnover of customers is testament to that.

None of us had desserts, although one looked interesting. Duomo di bosco translates literally as cathedral of the woods, which is as innovative a name for a pudding as I've heard. Fruit salad, chocolate fudge cake, cheese-cake and ice-cream tempted none of us, but from previous occasions I know them to be good. We finished our meal instead with coffee and I'm happy to say you can get a good espresso in Milano's.

The bill for the six of us, including mineral water and two bottles of wine came to £66.85 which is good value. Although I'm not a fan of formula foods, I have to say I think Milano's have got the pizza thing right.