This year August has been hotter than usual in central Italy. From where we live there are only two ways to escape the heat; either a day spent at a noisy and chlorinated public swimming pool, or a trip into the Apennine mountains where the higher you go the cooler it gets. August the 17th had all the makings of yet another ridiculously hot day. A totally clear sky and earth already hot from two weeks of blazing sunshine made this day yet another candidate for the upper thirties, or if you prefer over 100 degrees fahrenheit. On days like this a trip to the high mountains for some reason appeals to me more than a day spent in a chlorinated, noisy and over-populated pool. So the morning began with endless phonecalls back and forth that finally resulted in nine of us setting off in three cars for the Prati di Mezzo.

At one end of the valley in Italy where my family house is there is a town called Picinisco. At 700 metres above sea level, it sits nestled against the lower Apennine slopes where it commands extraordinary views across the valley. From here a winding, mountain road takes you relentlessly still further upwards through the beech forests that cover the mountains. It's not a road for the timid: narrow and twisting with heart-stopping drops to the valley below, it winds through the mountains, until after one last hair-pin turn, it levels off and leads into a high plateau called the Prati di Mezzo deep inside the Abruzzo National Park. It's Europe's largest national park and it's home to golden eagles, grey wolves and Marsican bears. In winter people come here to ski, but in the summer they're here to walk, look for mushrooms, or simply picnic in the cooler mountain air.

There really is nothing similar in Ireland. I've thought about it and I've drawn a blank. Imagine a mountain and then imagine a restaurant at the top of it. At 1,400 metres, or if you're imperially minded, somewhat over 4,600 feet, is where we ate. What was once a shepherd's hut is now a restaurant called 'Il Baraccone' where the tables are set outside under the beeches and planes. In front there's the vast expanse of mountain meadow, to the left the ski-lifts which take you up even higher, and to the right the road that leads back to the valley below. The shade and the mountain air meant that the ladies in our party needed their cardigans during lunch - quite a change from the heat we'd left behind.

Just at the entrance to the restaurant is one of the many springs that fill this valley. Here we filled empty bottles with the icy-cold water which we took to our table. As with many restaurants in Italy there is no menu - when the waiter, or in this case the owner, comes to take your order they simply recite to you what's on offer. There were three pastas that day: orecchiette, which are thick and look a bit like an ear, with mountain greens; fettucini with cream and mountain mushrooms, and gnocchi in a tomato sauce. We did the obvious thing and had a platter of each which we shared around, giving us the red, green and white of the Italian flag. The mountain greens turned out to be wild chicory and spinach, which are abundant enough in these mountains for those energetic enough to go and pick them. The mushrooms were porcini, or what are known in Ireland as Penny Buns. Perfumed and intensely flavoured, we could smell them even before they arrived at the table.

Main courses were equally straightforward: a thin slice of beef, Italian sausage or pieces of lamb, all done on a wood fire. The only other choice was a bit of everything, which is what I had. We ordered two litres of their own red wine which came rather endearingly in mineral water bottles. Maybe it was the mountain air, but the wine tasted delicious and combined with the woodsmoke-flavoured meat, it made this meal a real treat. One of our party, Tomaso, who has a his own vineyard on the shores of Lake Fibreno, had brought some of his rose which he makes with addition of an extraordinary grape known here as the 'strawberry grape'. It imparts to the wine a taste and an aroma almost of wild, mountain strawberries. Maybe not a flavour you'd want every day, but on the odd occasion it makes a wonderful summertime drink. Both Tomaso's wine and the restaurant's wine are of the kind that unfortunately cannot be bought outside Italy. EU law requires wine for export to be filtered and pasteurised, which neither of these home-made wines were. What you get when you drink wines like this is nothing more than fermented grape juice. It can be awful sometimes, but when it's good, like it was on this day, it's hard to beat.

The plainest of accompaniments came with the meats, a green salad and potatoes cubed and roasted with garlic and rosemary. Writing it now it sounds almost prosaic, but believe me at the top of the mountain it tasted spectacular. There's something about food eaten in the great outdoors that gives it a flavour second to none.

Some of us had ice-cream, but really after three bowls of pasta and then meat it needed a sturdier appetite than mine to continue eating. I settled for a Fernet, a bitter digestif perfect for settling a bloated stomach and accompanied it with an espresso. When we asked for the bill there was nothing as formal as a slip of paper itemising the various bits and pieces, just a simple 'that'll be 40,000 lire each', which is about £16. Actually, strange as it seems, by Italian standards that's quite expensive, but the rationale is that if you expect to find good food miles from anywhere civilised, then you can expect to pay over the odds for it.

I know that the chances of anyone reading this finding themselves in this restaurant are somewhat remote, but it does illustrate a point that I've long believed in. Complexity in cuisine doesn't necessarily mean good, and conversely simplicity can be wonderful. What it comes down to is this: a good meal should match your circumstance. Outdoors at 4,600
feet what you need is plain, wholesome and full-flavoured food,which is what we got. It's possible that at sea-level this same meal served at night might have seemed clumsy and heavy-handed, but there, in the Prati di Mezzo, it couldn't have been more right.