It was probably the best book launch I've been to. Mim Scala, who originates from the same valley in Italy as I do, had just had his 'Diary of a Teddy Boy' published by Sitric Press and the bash to send it off into the market place was in the Vicar Street Venue. Marianne Faithful was to be the guest speaker, but her well-publicised fall meant that the honour went to John Hurt. Book launches tend to be quiet, sober affairs with much literary talk and gentle conversations. This one had plenty of drink and great music deejayed by Tarquin Campbell and Poppy Lloyd, which got people dancing on the stage. I've noticed over and over again that in Ireland once a party gets started no one really wants it to end, so there was much talk of 'Where to next?'

Hunger won this particular debate: next stop had to be a restaurant, or people claimed they'd faint from lack of food. Now a couple of kindly readers had emailed me to tell me about a restaurant in Parliament Street called Topolis and since that was close enough to walk to, that's where we headed. The advance guard of Lainey Keogh, my wife Susie and I arrived without a reservation to find a very full restaurant, but they found us a table downstairs. This was perfectly acceptable, but upstairs had a definite edge when it came to atmosphere and we asked, should a table upstairs become available, could we have it. There were more of us to come, but as is the way of these things we had no idea when or indeed how many would eventually arrive.

There's a simple wine list, ten whites and ten reds which run from £11 to £21, with four house wines. A few French wines are listed, but the bulk of the list is made up of Australian, Italian, Spanish, Chilean and even a Portuguese wine. The Spanish Faustino V was fair value at £18.50 so I ordered a bottle of that before turning my attention to the menu. The menu is long; there are 7 antipasti, 6 salads, lots of pizzas, 8 pastas, 4 chicken dishes, meat dishes and fish dishes. It took us so long to choose from this lot, that by the time we did there was table ready for us upstairs to which we repaired just in time for our starters. Lainey had chosen the bruschetta, Susie the mussels gratin and I'd picked the deep-fried mozzarella, all of which were good and all of which cost less than £3.50, which these days is not expensive.

Once I'd hungrily demolished my mozzarella, a couple of Susie's mussels and a bite of Lainey's bruschetta, it was time to take a considered look at the room in which we sat. The first thing I noticed was that they have a proper woodfired pizza oven. I don't care what they tell me about flashy electric ovens, a pizza cooked in a wood-fired oven is as good as it gets, and that accounts for my choice for the next course. There's some nice paint effects, like classical column capitols painted in trompe l'oeuil, some oils on the walls which Lainey described as 'witty', a large chandelier in the centre of the room and some painted Bacchanalian vines linking the painted column tops. It feels like a cafe rather than a restaurant, and cafe is exactly the word they use to describe themselves. Busy, buzzy, full of energy and good fun.

Now one of the things I hated most when I had a restaurant was the ever expanding table. Just as you think you've got a table of people sorted, more join them. I remember it used to make me irritable. Just before our main courses arrived so did four more friends. A chair taken from a table here and a table there and finally we were all sat together. Unlike the way I used to be, no one in Topolis seemed to mind - in fact they couldn't have been more accommodating. Hugo, Cinnie, Minnie and Honor played catch-up and went straight to main courses of pizzas.

I'd chosen a capricciosa, a particular pizza filling that I often have because I like that combination of tastes. This was a good one, a crisp, thin base with the unmistakable flavour that comes from a wood-fired oven. If I had any reservation at all, it was that for my taste the base was a little under-salted. I know that you can always add salt to the plate, but somehow it's never quite the same as having it cooked into the dish. Susie had the chicken diavola, a flattened-out, char-grilled, marinated chicken breast with a spicy, hot flavouring and Lainey had the fettucine Topolis, which was made with pieces of chicken and came with a salad on the side of the same plate as the pasta. I have a problem with this, not just because it would be unthinkable in Italy to present pasta like this, but because a well-dressed salad - which will have vinegar as part of the dressing - will inevitably make everything else taste of vinegar, whether or not the dish is improved by it.

Not long after our main courses we were joined by my son and four friends so the table got enlarged again. Thankfully it was late and the crowd in the restaurant had thinned out considerably, leaving us enough room to accept the latest influx. No more food was ordered, but the Faustino V kept on coming to satisfy the newcomers. This kind of table arrangement, where people keep on arriving and the table keeps growing is common enough in Italy, in fact it might even be the norm, but it demands a flexibility of the restaurant that not all can handle. One of the things I liked best about Topolis was this very flexibility in their attitude - both friendly and accommodating.

Desserts were pretty much what you'd expect; a cassata, a tiramisu, a cheese cake and chocolate cake were on offer, but none of us had enough appetite to try one. I had an espresso, which was good and cost exactly £1, which is probably the cheapest I've seen it in a restaurant.

I'm staring at the bill as I write, trying to work out what it would have cost for two people with a bottle of wine, and it seems to be not much over £40, and that's with one of the more expensive wines. By any standards that's good value - exactly the kind of place for a large, amorphous group of people to congregate and enjoy themselves.