I dined at Otto on Tuesday night. We arrived about 9pm. The hostesses informed us the wait for two would be between 45 minutes and one hour. Our wait was actually about 30 minutes -- given the size of the dining room, I would say they do have a steady clip of tables turning. We waited in the full, but not overcrowded, bar area at a standing table. It took about 5 minutes for a cocktail waitress to stop by; we could have sought out our drinks or perhaps motioned for a waitress to come over, but we were engrossed in conversation and getting drinks was not a priority. Their waitlisting system struck me as odd, perhaps cutesy, and slightly annoying -- not one that I've experienced before. Upon providing your name and size of party, you're handed a brightly colored piece of paper (matching the interior decor), with an italian word pre-printed on it. I'm extremely sub-lingual in Italian, so I don't know what the words reflect (and also perhaps because of my initial annoyance at the system), I don't recall what our 'word' was. The hostesses man a chalkboard, and when your table is ready, they'll write the word printed on your piece of paper on the chalkboard, along with the size of your party and a time -- I don't recall if the time written reflects the point at which your name is listed on the board, or perhaps it's the time when you'll be taken off the board (presume a no-show) for the next waiting party. The part of all this that annoyed me is that the restaurant was crowded, the word was not in my lexicon, so I had to continually divert attention from conversation with my dining companion, to the pre-printed piece of paper (to remind myself what the word was), to the chalkboard, to see if our table was ready. The hostesses do not *seem* to actively seek out parties when their table is ready. Perhaps they will seek you out before your signal word is pulled down for another party. This gave the impression that you had to be very vigilant and keep your eye on the front of the room at all times -- making me a little paranoid that we'd miss our table, but the system works fine. I'm too used to peripherally listening for a familiar name called out, or the giant blinking coaster/pagers at large chains. I'm sure that when I dine again on a busy night at Otto, my initial annoyance at the waitlisting system will be gone, given that I now know what to expect. The dining room is pleasantly (but not expensively) decorated -- the predominant color is deep red -- another poster pointed out the colors match the sauce, which I'd say is accurate. There are a lot of tables, and they're fairly close together -- close enough you can hear the conversation at the adjoining table without appearing obvious; but not so close that everyone in your immediate vicinity has to reposition when you get up to go to the bathroom. I'd say it's average spacing between tables for a Manhattan restaurant. The decor visually feels comfortable and efficient; however I wouldn't say the seating is of the type that makes you want to linger in conversation for a long time after the meal. Our server was friendly, and fairly knowledgable, but not as present as I would prefer -- we waited about 10 minutes after being seated before she approached. I believe we saw her once, maybe twice again before she took our dessert order. She adequately handled all questions on the cuisine, recommended dishes, etc. There were a few others service issues throughout the meal -- my diet coke delivered to the next table, their after dinner coffee delivered to our table 10 minutes later (and before any food), my companion had to follow-up on his glass of wine when it didn't arrive with the main course. Knowing that the restaurant had just opened, none of these were bothersome enough to comment to the restaurant on. We were also much more focused on conversation and catching up, and not focused evaluating the restaurant. The menu and the wine list has been extensively covered; our experience did not deviate from what others have reported. Our starters were the celery root and citrus salad (excellent); the pickled mushrooms (excellent), and salsify with saba (adequate). I would not order the salsify again, although it was competently prepared, it's just not the type of dish that appeals to my personal tastes -- it reminded me too much of cooked carrots, which I do not like. It was ordered based on what I've read here, and recommendation of our server. For the main course, we had the Marinara (very good) and Romana (excellent) pizzas -- neither one of us was in a very experimental mood. I love quality anchovies when done right, and although I don't eat them often, when I do either love or hate them. On the Romana pizza they were not omnipresent. They were situated so that you could get one quarter inch piece of anchovy in about every other bite. They also married beautifully with the mozzarella -- a combination that I haven't had, but will definitely remember. Although I don't believe they were, they remind me of mild white anchovies that I've had in tapas. The Marinara pizza was exactly as expected -- plain, but with a bite from the peppers. Overall, the quality and freshess of the ingredients was loud & clear. For desert, we split two scoops of gelato -- the meyer lemon with a ribbon of huckleberry (excellent excellent), and the caramel (excellent and a half). The cost for the meal (pre-tip) was appx $60 -- my companion had one glass of wine and I had one diet coke. One more service incident sticks out in my mind. When I went to recover our coats and scarves and gloves and hats (it's been an extremely cold week in New York), I waited patiently for the coat check person to extract herself from a personal conversation with a member of restaurant management (a gentleman I noted circulating the room all evening) -- note that I was in plain view slightly behind and to the side of the gentleman. After more than 30 seconds of waiting for this personal conversation to end, I aggressively inserted myself in the middle of them to present our claim tickets. I have no problem with honest service mistakes, however I have absolutely no patience for lax or apathetic service. I hope this was an isolated incident. I'm looking forward to getting back to Otto after the initial buzz has died down (will it?), and to being a little more adventurous with my selections -- I will go with a larger group of people (for a diverse selection of yummy things to taste). My objective is to delve into the bruschettas and cheese courses. We did not have a collective appetite to eat a lot of food on Tuesday. I'm also hoping that the service has improved -- so that I don't have a persistent association of mildly negative experiences.
