Orford, Suffolk (01394 450 277). Meal for two, including drinks and service, £70

It would be hard to describe the Butley Orford Oysterage as pretty, especially on a deep midwinter's day when even by lunchtime the light looks like it's had enough and is thinking of packing up for the day. The Suffolk sky hangs low and heavy, and from time to time there is the smell on the air of smoking fish, like every day here is kipper day. Inside it is all metal-framed chairs on hard, dark-tiled floors. The paintwork is picked out in that shade of diluted pea green that used to be reserved for institutional crockery – the sort that bounced when you dropped it. The dining room has the feel of a cottage hospital café circa 1962, the sort where you might wait to hear from a consultant who looked like James Robertson Justice whether your loved one's bunion operation went well. In one way that's not far off, for the restaurant did launch in the 60s, when postwar London refusenik Richard Pinney was looking for an outlet for the smoked fish and oysters that were the core of his business.

And that is where the beauty lies. Not in the crockery or the paintwork or the lighting – none of which looks like it has altered much. It lies in the fish. The smokehouse Pinney's of Orford is still there, and still smoking fish over whole oak logs pretty much as it was when Pinney set it up. They are still fishing out oysters from Butley Creek, where he first sowed them, using Portuguese rocks. And what oysters! Rarely do you eat oysters because you are hungry. Or, to put it another way, you may be hungry, but half a dozen raw oysters won't fill you up. They enliven you. They slap you round the chops. They make you widen your eyes and let out a hiss of pleasure. These ones do all that and more. They are huge. They are big, sweet, meaty things. At £1.20 each they are also cheap. I swoon. I declare myself unequal to the task. I leave one uneaten. The shame!

For there are other things to be brought to me, by a bunch of sturdy, cheerful women who look like they have been in the fetching and carrying business for a fair old time. That is the pleasure of the place. It's not out of date because it never had a date. It's never out of fashion because it's never been in fashion. A special of their own taramasalata may not remind me of that made by the mother of my Greek-Cypriot friend. Hers was creamy and light. This is big and butch and salty and all the better for that. It is full of fish oils and the tang of real smoke. A plate of sweet grilled squid is just that: small bodies, curly tentacles, none of it introduced to the heat for too long.

And then the mains. Stand back. Clear a bit of space. Something large is coming. There is a special of cod with a herb crust, flavoured with lemongrass. It is so big it looks like a sofa. If you couldn't get a bed for the night this plateful would do. (And don't send me cross notes about the sustainability of cod; have a look at what's happening in the Barents Sea.) Perhaps inevitably, with such a big piece of fish, the ends are a little overcooked, but in the middle the flakes fall gently away from each other, as if that had always been their purpose, and they had only been hanging out together to pass the time. I have a skate wing in a pond of hot, acidulated brown butter with capers, and the flesh also pulls away from the cartilage with no effort whatsoever. It is there to serve.

There are boiled new potatoes. There is bread and butter. There is contented chatter. And that's about it. The wine list is serviceable and, like all the pricing here, ungrasping. The cost shown here is only for those who insist upon gluttony. We order a slice of their warm chocolate cake with pistachio ice cream plus two spoons, more out of a desire to show willing than anything else. It is light and uncloying and completely unnecessary. We have been bathed in butter and good seafood. We have been fed well and, it feels, we have been fed often. No, the Butley Orford Oysterage is not pretty. But it is good, and that's what matters.

Email Jay at jay.rayner@observer.co.uk or visit theguardian.com/profile/jayrayner for all his reviews in one place