Otello Restaurant

It is an Italian restaurant that serves to the masses. It is always busy, they are always friendly, and you can get huge plates of pasta or pizzas for a good price. I have been here frequently and never been disappointed. Is it exactly like Rome? No. But it is probably the best you will get in Hove.
Also, their fish specials are fresh and delicious.
Very child friendly.

The food was great (except for the lasagne which tasted similar to quorn flavored bread), the waiters are authentic Italian but purely on the basis that the young man serving us was rude and arrogant and would make love to himself if it was scientifically possible.
He charged the bill twice for wine but never bought wine the first time to the table when we only ordered one glass, the owner seemed similarly as incompetent when he had to correct the problems made by his crayola bright staff.
We were offered desert and got given menus but no one came to take our order for 30 minutes so we paid and left without trying any desert.
A 10% service charge is automatically added, which is ironic considering they should be taking 10% off our bill for their lack of service and constant mistakes and rudeness.
They clearly don’t care about keeping local customers, as there was only one other table occupied in the place.
On the plus side it does seem a good place for children, I have no kids and actually don’t like having kids screaming and running around my feet when I am eating but if you are a parent i am sure it’s be a good place to let your kids smear spaghetti over their face while the waiters ignore your existence.
2 stars goes purely to the chef and the chef only.
I would go opposite the street to the other Italian place.

One of the many Italian Restaurants that reside in Church Road Hove.
It’s not the most popular of them all but I like it. Especially the pizza from their wood fire oven which can be seen from the dining room floor.
Good family run business feel to the place, reasonably priced and decent enough food. A good range of pizza and pasta to chose from, and dessert menu is great too. There is a cheap lunch time set menu, although choices are limited. They don’t scrimp on food portions so you get your money’s worth. Decent array on the specials board too.
Lovely decked garden area out back which is a food sun trap

Our The food, prices and waiting staff never disappoint. Our family has met up there for about ten years. It’s not a posh or plush place but it’s decent. Big portions of delicious italian food, and some sexy waiters!!!

my daughter and i visited this restaurant in the early evening of wednesday 13^th june 2012 and i can only say the whole experience was atrocious, not only was the food of a very poor quality but the waiters were rude and inattentive to the point where even after mistakenly leaving a tip on top of the service charge they failed to even say thank you or even good night. On top of this a family with a young child were dining next to us and the child fired a plastic bullet which had already been in his mouth and all over the floor straight in to my dinner which i then could not eat this incident was totally ignored by the staff. Not a restaurant i would visit again much less recommend to others. As for the price it may well be average but very over priced for the food they serve up.

If you’re in Hove and fancy some Italian food then I would say Otello’s is a good place to go. I’ve only been once but enjoyed my food. The calamari was not as good as I hoped but the pesto tortellini I had for my main course was delicious.
It’s reasonably priced and I was able to have these two courses and a glass of wine for around £15. Can’t complain about that really. Those I was with seemed to enjoy their food too, nothing to rave about but tasty and didn’t break the bank.
I would like to compliment the service though, and say that they were very patient when two of the people from our party were half an hour late as they were stuck in traffic.

The enduring popularity of Otello surprises me. Being half Italian I’m used to traditional Italian cooking. The food at Otello is reminiscent of that served in motorway service stations in Italy. It certainly delivers on price but it’s clear many corners have been cut in the overall concept. Cheap food doesn’t necessarily have to be really, really average. Nonetheless it’s still popular: obviously I’m missing something.

Otello is one of the worse Italian restaurants Brighton has to offer, but is by no means a bad night out. The food is perfectly OK, as is the service, the ambiance and so on: the problem is with the set-​up and the food. As an Italian restaurant, it fails miserably, as the food is somewhere between British and Mediterranean: not exactly the world’s tastiest combo. Also, the décor and design screams of wealth and class, but the food has none of that finesse. It’s just a very confused evening… and not one I’d be quick to repeat.
Otello is a mish-​mash of budget and fine dining, in a myriad number of ways. The prices are gratifyingly cheap, and yet everything looks very elegant and sparkly. The food is not particularly good, yet there’s an extensive wine list… What is going on here? In the end, I reached the conclusion that Otello is trying to straddle a couple different markets, and has thus ended up in a complete mess.
The food, for instance, is pretty poor. It’s not particularly fresh, and simple recipes taste very overcooked. It tastes a bit like food prepared in vats… and yet the menu is full of different dishes! How many vats does their kitchen have? Also, this is clearly Italian food interpreted by a British chef: it has none of the touch or finesse of true Italian cuisine.
The prices are all very reasonable for this low food quality, but the whole experience feels incongruous in the surroundings. I find it hard to imagine returning to Otello, it really doesn’t offer anything I want. The food just isn’t good enough, and everything else there seems to be designed to make you think the chef might be having an off day. All very strange. I wouldn’t bother, but then again, you might like this faux-​Italian thing; maybe it’s the new way of doing things?

I agree with Mike that it isn’t completely Italian but how many Italian places in Brighton would be to be honest?
The place itself is quite large and the décor feels non-​english but from experience not truly Italian. There are options for buffet which is about £6 or set menus etc and 3 courses will set you back £25 including the service charge of 10%. It’s difficult to say too much as it really doesnt’t wow you but would be somewhere different if you are getting bored of the norm.
The location itself is good as you are not far from pubs and a short bus ride to town so getting lots of people there shouldn’t be difficult if you are a large group.

Having grown up with an Italian mother my exposure to authentic Italian cooking is, as you’d imagine, quite extensive. Therefore when I am presented with a decent pizza or pasta dish I can really appreciate it for what it’s worth. However, when Otello presented me with what can only be described as the Italian equivalent of motorway service station food, I was surprised and dismayed.
I understand that Otello are aiming at the budget end of the market but I wouldn’t want to bring a true Italian here for the fear they might be sincerely offended. Yes it’s cheap but for the same money you could go to Waitrose and buy ingredients that’ll yield a better tasting dish. However, it wasn’t awful: just very disappointing.

decent enough food a lunch or breakfast in the adjoined café. Friendly staff too.

Heute war ich nach der Arbeit und dem Joggen am Strand noch auf der Suche nach einem Restaurant für das Dinner. Es war mittlerweile schon nach 21h, so dass nicht mehr alle Restaurants auf hatten bzw. die Küche schon geschlossen hatte.
Ich bin daher von meinem etwas abseits gelegenen Hotel los gelaufen und in die Church Road eingebogen. Da ich Lust auf Fisch hatte und die Speisekarte des Otellos Schwertfisch im Angebot hatte, der mit knapp 13 GBP auch nicht übermäßig teuer war, entschied ich mich hineinzugehen.
Vom Kellner am Eingang wurde ich freundlich begrüßt und mir ein kleiner Einzeltisch zugewiesen (ich war auch nur alleine). Ich bestellte einen Weißwein im Glas sowie als Starter Hackfleischbällchen in Tomatensauce. Der Weißwein kam als erstes: Er war angenehm kühl und schmeckte auch herrlich erfrischend fruchtig. Danach wurde der Starter serviert: Auf einem mittleren Teller wurden einige Fleischbällchen in einer delikaten Tomatensauce mit Knoblauch angerichtet. Das war sehr lecker. Als Hauptspeise kam danach der gegrillte Schwertfisch in einer Zitronen/​Butter/​Knoblauch-​Sauce. Dazu wurden noch Kartoffeln und Gemüse serviert. Ich war am Anfang am zweifeln, ob die Portionen sehr klein sind. Allerdings ist das meiner Meinung nach nicht der Fall. Ich wurde auf jeden Fall satt. Vorher wurde ich auch immer gefragt, ob ich auch frischen, schwarzen Pfeffer möchte. Das finde ich gut, wenn ich nicht extra nachfragen muss.
Auf meine Nachfrage nach einem Ramazzotti oder Averna musste das Otello allerdings passen. Einen Grappa hatte man dann aber noch gefunden.
Alles in allem eine nettes italienisches Restaurant, in dem man abends gemütlich speisen kann.

A Good Italian in Hove. good prices & the food is good too won’t be the poshest returant you pick but it is very good for a nice meal with friends etc. Service is good & its very nice & bright & breezy in there!

Otello is a clean and bright Italian restaurant in the centre of Hove. The staff were pleasant and the service good.
I ordered the pizza pescatori which has tuna, onion, peppers, garlic and tomato, but no mozzarella. It was very tasty, especially after we’d managed to convince the waiter to let us have a little parmesan on top.
What really made the meal though were the desserts. I had the tiramisu and my partner had the profiteroles. Both were healthy portions and mouth-​wateringly delicious. The tiramisu was so tasty in fact, that I decided not to eat or drink anything else for the rest of the evening so that I could savor the taste.