OTTO — Restaurant in Newton

Have loved Otto’s for years. Our favorite pizza and recommend to everyone! We had a terrible experience today and needed to write this review. We went to Newton Otto’s and have had good experiences in the past, tonight was awful. It being a Sunday night it was quiet. We arrived and had to wait to be seated only saw one female wait staff and another male. We could see cook in the kitchen. There were customers at 2 other table of two. Eventually the waitress came over and seated us and we then waited 10-15 mins until we got a wait staff. It was the male. We gave him our order. Caesar salad and a 4 cheese white pizza with extra pepperoni. The Caesar salad came out first and then the pizza. Pizza was wrong. Had no pepperoni on it. We told the female wait staff and she took the pizza to be corrected. She could barely speak English. The pizza that came back was a horrendous mess. The amount of pepperoni was more than normal for extra. It was enough for 3-4 other pizzas. The cheese was super thick and not cooked through. The amount of grease from the absurd amount of pepperoni made a puddle of grease. We each barely could eat 1 slice. We explained to the female wait staff that the pizza was not acceptable and wanted it taken off our bill. The male wait staff/manager came over and we told him how this was the first time we were disappointed in Otto’s as we always loved it. He gave us some attitude remarking we asked for extra pepperoni and that’s what we got. I said that it was not just extra it was an obscene amount. I had taken off 25 slices at least that were piled on and they made the pizza sit in a puddle if grease. This location needs better staff and definitely a better cook in the kitchen. Who ever made the pizza didn’t care about what they were making!!! Will not be going to Newton location any time soon. Funny thing is we had just been at Coolidge Corner location after a movie ( which was busy) we decided to go to the one closer to our home in Newton. We should have waited for a table at the Coolidge...

Not sure what’s happening with Otto pizza between the Newton and Arlington locations. I’ve never been able to get a decent pizza for the Arlington location unless it’s plain cheese, and lately the Newton location has fallen off too. I usually get the Buffalo cauliflower pizza, always requesting it to be well done, and always receiving it undercooked. I usually just manage and toast it at home or work, but as all other similar reviews point out, I shouldn’t be paying this much for a product thrown together with no care or thought. Tonight I ordered two pizzas for pickup. My buffalo cauliflower pizza came out as a Buffalo chicken pizza. I’m glad that my passenger checked the pizzas to find we had the wrong pizza before driving all the way back home. We were offered to keep the mistake one while they cooked the cauliflower pizza. The person with me eats meat and figured why not try the buffalo chicken and try to not waste it…what a mistake. This was definitely top 3 grossest pizzas I’ve ever seen. Despite the request for a well done pizza it was of course undercooked and a floppy mess. No thought or care has been going into the food here. I was shocked at the appearance of the chicken- it was extremely dry and just generally really poor quality. The remake of my pizza was decent which I am appreciative of. Coming to see almost the exact same reviews to what i experienced made me want to speak up as well. I get it it’s pizza it’s not the biggest issue to have but it would be nice to be able to depend on consistency somewhere you like to eat! Right now I think cheese is the only safe...

Update: we went a second time. The place felt a bit moribund, on a Saturday night. But, we soldiered on. The food was actually a bit better, but the service was worse. I’ve taken off a star. My wife said she wanted my assessment to be wrong, but she couldn’t disagree. Our server was really fine, but…There was an elderly couple near us. Their pizza fell off the stand on their table, and lay face down on the floor. And it just lay there, and lay there. Nobody came rushing over, nobody seemed to care. It was just awful. It’s like there’s no manager, nobody in charge. I think the place will close down before long.

Newton residents, we were excited that Otto was coming. It was just okay. 10 minutes standing in the entry before someone seated us, undercooked pizza that arrived lukewarm, gigantic tv sets diverting our kids attention from dinner, all hard surfaces making it very loud. Step 1: Otto needs to bring a manager and a cook and a server in from Coolidge Corner to show them how to run a tight ship. We are paying prices for “excellent” and getting “okay”. We’ll try one more time in...