What makes you return to a restaurant again and again? Good food is important, but there’s more to it. Arguably as crucial are a warm welcome, a relaxed atmosphere and affordable prices. In London, that combination is the holy grail. Restaurateurs spaff budgets on PR, forgetting that you can’t buy that feeling of a great family-run, neighbourhood restaurant. One where the proprietor knows your name, your favourite order – and if you’re lucky – throws in a glass of port with your bill.

Tucked demurely between a branch of London’s worst bar, Belushi’s, and a nail salon off the mildly chaotic main drag in Camden, O Tino is a little haven, A brightly lit Portuguese gaff where Pedro Cabral and his parents, Elisabete and Florentino (Tino), greet every customer as if they were a long-time friend. Pedro seems to know everyone and treats those he doesn’t yet like he will soon. On the table next to me sits an older gentleman who, Pedro tells me, is writing his memoir. A few seats away is a table of Brazilian moped delivery drivers wolfing down lunch in between shifts.

Tino’s family moved to London 35 years ago from Portugal, where they owned a snack bar. After taking over this site in 2007, they slowly turned it into one of London’s best Portuguese restaurants – and are still fully booked every weekend. It’s basic: A few wooden tables, some Formica and bright lighting. In terms of decoration, there are two screens where the football is always on. A chiller cabinet houses chocolate mousses and cakes. Behind that, a small bar, where you can stand with an espresso and a salt-cod fritter. It seats 30, max.

Tino has partially retired but still comes in every day to help out, have a coffee, watch the news and catch up with mates. Pedro took over the reins and is a natural maitre d’. The regular menu spans familiar Portuguese classics that I haven’t found done better – either in Stockwell or Portugal itself. From a tiny kitchen ‘the boss’, as Pedro calls Elisabete, churns out a remarkably consistent repertoire of dishes including bacalhau com todos – a huge chunk of salt cod with boiled eggs and potatoes, chickpeas and cabbage. I’ve had it in Lisbon and been unimpressed by its dryness, but here, the cod is pearlescent, flaky and just the right level of saltiness. Pedro instructs me to douse it in olive oil and sprinkle a potent concoction of raw onion, garlic and parsley on top. It lingers on the breath – and in my mind – for days. In a good way.

Here’s how to do O Tino’s. Come with a group. Get a few suckling pig rissóis, a beautifully garlicky, mildly spiced pastry, and wash them down with an ice-cold Super Bock. Order a few starters, but non-negotiable are the clams in white wine sauce and the gambas à Tino, fat prawns in a tomato sauce honking with garlic – it’s a running theme. Grab a few mains. Pork à alentejana, pork and clams with fried potatoes that have soaked up their juices. One of the cod dishes – the best being bacalhau à minhota, an oily, garlicky marriage of salt cod, red peppers and those wonderful Portuguese chips that look like crisps. Piri Piri chicken cooked over charcoal until the skin is blistered and smoky. Approach the hot sauce cautiously. It’s made with Elisabete’s fiercely hot jindungo chillies which she grows at home having brought seeds back from Angola. Get sardines or a whole char-grilled sea bream, depending on what the Cabrals say is best that day. As good as the turbot at Brat and a fraction of the cost. Finish with a nostalgically sweet chocolate mousse. Just remember to bring Polos too.