Ottavio's Italian Restaurant

Great Italian food.

Nice, friendly restaurant. I ordered the Fra Diavolo for takeout in the past. I highly recommend it. Recently, I decided to try dining in and order the spaghetti carbonara. Definitely, not a winner. It was over seasoned with pepper and not so much a cream sauce.

One of my favorite Italian Food Restaurant's!! Great food, with wonderful vegetarian and gluten free options. Warm, cozy atmosphere, with a choice of dining on the patio. Sevice is always excellent!!

This place is awesome!!! Will continue to come here!

Best Italian food in East County. Great drinks too and no too pricy. Highly recommend

I live close by and have come here a lot. The food is usually very good. The Marsala is pretty solid. HOWEVER tonight we got Marsala for mother’s day dinner and it tasted like pure wine. We know it has wine and we have had it here plenty of times and it is usually good. This time it was pure wine flavor and not edible. Very sad that a cook would let their lazyness affect the business and customers. Mistakes are made you know if you pour way to much wine in something if you’ve made it 100s of times. If a mistake is made start over it just doesn’t make sense to just continue and serve that to someone in a Togo order knowing they most likely won’t come back. So sad to ruin a dinner and the reputation of the business.

The food and service is always great. My favorites are the caprese salad and the lasagna. So delicious!!

Atmosphere: 5

Food: 5

Service: 5

Ottavio’s is a great place to go. I would have to bet this is the best pizza restaurant in East county. I’ve been going here for years. They have woodfired pizza. The dough is very good. It’s to die for and just a cheese and the pepperoni is good. And it’s a great atmosphere and I really love it. All their food is good.

Atmosphere: 5

Food: 5

A little pricey, but always good food!

Atmosphere: 4

Food: 4

Service: 4

Outstanding Italian cuisine in the heart of Lakeside. Who would have thought that a 5 star, arguably one of the best Italian restaurants in San Diego County would be housed in little Lakeside. Let me introduce you to Ottavio's Italian Restaurant. Visiting our good friends on Saturday night they decided to treat us to dinner at one of their favorite restaurants. We arrived and only waited 5 minutes to get a table for four. The atmosphere is nice but not special with photos of famous Italian entertainers adorning the walls. We began the night with appetizers of Brussels Sprouts and an order of Calamari. The Brussel Sprouts are cooked with smoked bacon, raisins, romano and balsamic and then dusted with parmesan cheese. They were outstanding and I would suppose healthy. The calamari consisted of traditional rings with an outstanding marinara sauce. They also brought a basket of homemade focaccia bread to dip in oil and balsamic vinegar. For dinner I order the Spaghetti Carbonara and my wife the Mussels Appetizer. The spaghetti carbonara was some of the best I have ever ordered. The flavor and consistency of that found in the best restaurants in Rome, Italy. The mussels were cooked in white wine, herb butter, garlic, basil, marinara, chili pepper with garlic bread for dipping on the side. She really enjoyed this dish. We brought wine and corkage was only $10 a bottle. Service was outstanding and prices were surprisingly low for the quality and quantity of food. This restaurant deserves 5 stars and we will definitely return.

Atmosphere: 4

Food: 5

Service: 5

Our first time there, what an amazing experience!! The food and service were incredible.

Atmosphere: 5

Food: 5

Service: 5

Part 1 of 2
Food is always great, but couldn’t say the same for our experience last night!
Went there on 09/13/2024
Food and people are great for most of the time. We ordered chicken Alfredo and roasted garlic chicken pizza. Both are always on point when we get them.

Unfortunately the experience for us this last time around wasn’t the best. Our server Dan started off normal, but as the time progressed the encounters started getting interesting.

We were a party of 6(4 is my little family & 2 was my cousin and his other half). It was their first time there and just wanted them to try the delicious food.

Before ordering, I asked Dan if we could split our bill and before I could explain that it’ll be my fam and the other 2 on their own, he went ahead and told me it’s gonna be hard to do that because he has a big party over 20 people coming in later.

So I moved on and proceeded to order. My wife and I agreed to order one regular size chicken Alfredo(it’s big enough to feed my whole family of 4) and a large roasted garlic chicken pizza. We decided to order because it was 6pm and my kids needed to eat. Told Dan that it was my cousin and his other half’s first time here, so didn’t know what to order. So we agreed for more time to look over the menu and that they could order when they’re ready. So they order the mozzarella cheese sticks to get started.

After ordering, we talked about what they normally would get at an Italian restaurant. And of course they wanted the chicken Alfredo. So I suggested that they can just try some of ours and they can order something else or more afterwards. In my mind, what difference would it make since it’s just going to be one bill.

Not sure if the bread w/ oil and vinegar is no longer complimentary because I asked Dan if we could have some for our table(kind of how we always had, but didn’t have to ask). Was told that he could give the bread as complimentary this time, but will be an extra $3 a basket afterwards. I took it as it’s not, but I got you this one time vibe. I could be wrong, but it is what it is.

Pictures are to complete my review. Hope you all have a better experience than us. And I’m brown, but I’m sure that had nothing to do with the experience! They are nice people and great food there! Other than this one, it’s always been great!

Atmosphere: 3

Food: 5

Service: 3

We had a magical dinner at Ottavio’s! We went on a Friday night and had to wait 40 minutes due to how busy it is, the weather was good so wasn’t too bad a wait. We sat on the dog friendly patio which was really nice. We started with the garlic bread and Brussel sprouts, and for entrees the rigatoni Ottavio’s (the cheese is amazing) and penne alla vodka. The service is quick and very friendly. Definitely recommend, great family friendly Italian restaurant.

Atmosphere: 5

Food: 5

Service: 5

Recommended dishes: Garlic Bread

Delish dinner as usual!

Atmosphere: 5

Food: 5

Service: 5

Recommended dishes: Large Bruschetta

We recently moved to Lakeside from the College area. Decided to try Ottavio's out. We were impressed at every level from the service to the food. Rarely does a restaurant hit all the points to make a great evening out.....they did not disappoint.

Atmosphere: 5

Food: 5

Service: 5