Pinocchio

Great Pizza in an authentic setting. It’s a bit of a squeeze, but that creates a nice environment. Staff are friendly and very happy to help. Prices are reasonable and it’s in a great location if you’ve been to the theatre/​dome.

I don’t know why I’ve ended up here on several occasions (other than because it’s cheap). The food is disappointing, the staff bumbling and they have really tried to squeeze as many tables in as possible. On one occasion I was seated near the door, where upon my dinning companion and I were constantly gawped at, by people standing and queuing. Also, for some reason there are always a group of drunk women just hanging out, outside the toilets. There are so many better places to eat than this in Brighton.

The best way to describe this place is … its not worse than Pizza Hut, but it’s not as good as Pizza Express! It’s A-​OK! It’s a good value for money place to eat in Brighton.
2 course for £7.95 is alright, I normally go for a prawn cocktail starter and get a pizza. The leonardo is REALLY good. But don’t get the fish pizza. In fact, anyone who gets FISH on pizza, should be shot. This may sound a little harsh, but come on, Fish ON PIZZA. yuk. Anyway, the pizza is good!
However, today, I went for a salad. It wasn’t in the deal, as the deal is a pizza or pasta. But, I wanted to be healthy, I wish I hadn’t! There wasn’t much to it. A couple of lumps of avocado, olives WITH STONES IN, spinach, small chunks of chicken and low fat yogurt for a dressing. It was tasteless! I had to add lots of Balsamic vinegar and salt to it. I would not recommend it.
All in all, its alright! The service is okay, it’s not like out of this world, I might sound harsh, but sometimes the waitress do not have great english and often there is a bit of a language barrier when ordering food. Obviously, it’s not a massive deal, but sometimes you like to be able to communicate with what your ordering and engage in some kind of conversation. I’m not up for trying to make chopper mates with the staff, I just would like to have a bit of personality.
IMPORTANT FACT!!! If you decide to sit outside, sit on the tables furthest away from the door, nearest the road! The sun remains on those tables more, we learnt this today as we had to move as it got a bit chilly in the shade!
I wouldn’t say, DONT GO! But, it’s worth a try if your on a budget. Nothing to write home about and certainly not somewhere to go if your impressing a girl on first date.

Can’t go wrong, food is always plentiful and tastes great. Two course offer cannot be beat in Brighton :) Staff are efficient, happy and attentive but leave you be — creating a very relaxed atmosphere.
I love the curried pasta and the bright orange aperols particularly!

I used to work in an office opposite these guys and I regularly felt like weeping thanks to the delicious fumes emanating from this place every lunchtime! — I do LOVE the food here.
There are so many independantly-​owned italian restaurants dotted around town (I’ve eaten at most of them, over the years!) and Pinocchio’s is my firm favourite. If you like homemade thin crust Italian-​style pizzas, you won’t be disappointed. They also pass my portion-​size guideline of ‘pizzas must be bigger than your face’; as does their garlic pizza bread starter — you have been warned! Pinocchio’s have an extensive pasta menu too (you can’t go wrong with their spag bol) and it always fills me with joy when the older guy (we’ve nicknamed him ‘Gepetto’) appears with his large bowl of parmesan and giant black pepper mill. Be warned it can get busy pre-​theatre, but they are always happy to take bookings. They serve gluten-​free pasta and takeaway pizzas too :)

A decent, quick, cheap meal.
I have such memories of this place. As a child my parents and I would come to Pinocchio’s a few times a month. It was run by a charismatic Italian guy, and most of the waiters were middle-​aged. It was old-​fashioned, cheesy and so, so good.
These days the décor is a bit brighter and fresher, but it seems the charm has gone a little bit.
The service is generally good here. Friendly and fast. Although the last time we visited, our waitress left us for a long time waiting to order so she could (visibly!) eat some bread and chat to the chefs. Not great, but she was smiley, and the rest of our meal went smoothly.
The food here is good value and consistent. It’s probably not the best Italian food you can find, but it’s reliable and tasty. I usually go for the cannelloni with spinach and ricotta, and it’s always the same, which is kind of comforting. It’s warming and nicely seasoned. The pizzas here are good too. I’m not sure what happens when you move away from the pasta and pizza into the other traditional dishes, but I have heard mixed reviews from those that have.
One thing to try — the tiramisu. It’s homemade, a large portion and to die for!
They have really great fixed price menus, so if you’re on a budget you can still eat a big meal. The restaurant is also very child-​friendly.
The service is quick, as I said, so if you’re on your way to the Theatre or the Dome, it’s a reliable choice.
It’s also open really late — last orders are at 11.30pm, so very useful if you’re hungry after a show or a few drinks at the pub.
Overall, it’s not the most exquisite dining experience, but it’s tasty and does the job.

When we first walked in, service was good and they were quite accommodating. However when we starting to order, that’s when things took a turn for the worse. Our waitress was quite pushy and all acted stressed and in a hurry. The food quality was ok, in edible condition. However my mother ordered the halibut and it was overcooked.
Overall, my experience here wasn’t great and I don’t think I’ll come back.

The restaurant is one of the best italian Restaurants in this area.
Friendly, quick and good.
Los baños estan limpios y la comida biene rapidamente.

While it’s certainly not the most horrid food in the world, I expected a bit more than what I got. The price for the set menu seems to have gone up just a touch but it seemed an inexpensive enough option when planning a recent holiday to Brighton — little did I know that nearly every restaurant on the avenue had a similarly priced lunch special. We carried on though and ordered what seemed like nice enough meals.
I ordered gnocchi in a bleu cheese sauce but was brought something that looked rather a lot like gnocchi covered in American processed cheese sauce –thick and bright orange, mildly grainy in texture. It reminded me of the sort of meal you’d give a small child at school rather than an entrée fit for an adult. I ate it (it was tolerable and I knew I wouldn’t get a chance to eat until the next afternoon given our plans) but was definitely somewhat hesitant. It isn’t the worst food I’ve ever had but with so many dining options in Brighton, I’d think twice before returning and certainly avoid ordering the gnocchi again.

If you’re after some cheap ‘does what it says on tin’ Italian in the town centre, there’s really not much that can go wrong in this place. I can’t say much about the broader menu, because I’m a cheap skate, and always go for the £6.95, 2 course menu! And I always have the same thing! Trust me, the garlic mushrooms, and chicken and spaghetti, is the only way to go!
That said, I’ve tried others things that friends have ordered, and it all seems nice enough to me.
On summer days, the patio out the front is a great place to share a meal and watch the world go by, and inside is just as charming.
The staff are good, and take big groups dropping by in their stride.
They have a large range of pizzas and pasta, with a few meaty varieties thrown in for good measure.
There’s a 10% service charge added, so do budget for that.
Ideally placed for lining the tummy before a night out, it’s no wonder that Pinocchio’s have survived when so many others have failed.
Just don’t expect cordon bleu!

I ordered Spaghetti alla Carbonara which arrived as a lukewarm, congealed, tasteless & inedible mess. The pasta was completely overcooked & the pork was processed. When I sent it back the manager explained that it came out of a packet & that was how it was served in every restaurant in the chain. I wasn’t offered a substitute for the returned meal, but was instead charged the full price. Instead of inflicting Pinocchio’s repugnant brand of culinary atrocity on yourself just get a Pot Noodle, it would be just as authentically Italian.
Never again!

This is a charming and authentic little Italian restaurant. It has a wonderfully cheery atmosphere in it and the staff are very friendly. I thought the décor was so sweet: fresh white walls with a few authentic paintings, wooden tables and hanging plants — it really does try to make it seem like you’re in a quaint street in Italy!
The service may have been a little on the slow side but the food tasted fine and the portion sizes were good as well. There is a wide selection of typical Italian dishes to choose from and the prices were great. It’s cheap and cheerful, but the food still tasted OK, of course it wasn’t going to be impecible quality with the amount they charge but it’s a lovely little place to go for dinner and share a bottle of wine with. (The wine is also cheap!). Don’t slate it until you try it for yourself.

There’s a whole bunch of cheap, nasty Italian restaurants in Brighton, and this one is down there, rooting about the gutter-​regions with the worst. Sure these places have their place and purpose — cheap and cheesy grub for kids and people with no palette, but there’s still something wholly undignified about the whole operation, like those ‘wacky’ American family eateries featured in The Simpsons. The ketchup-​flavoured sauces are squeezed out the other end of the production line at worrying speed to literally loads of squealing tables. At £3 for a lunch-​time lasagne or margarita its no wonder quality is forfeited in favour of in-​out service. And the results are bad: hard, biscotti bases, with a well of oily goo that glistens ominously on top.

When I fancy a cheap Italian, I normally head to Donatello’s (
) in The Lanes. Seeing as Pinocchio’s is owned by the same people and has exactly the same menu, I thought I’d head here for a change of scenery. I’ve heard appalling things in the past from friends about their service, but I wanted to find out for myself.
At first glance, Pinocchio’s is perfectly pleasant — all bistro-​style tables and gingham tablecloths. We were seated upstairs by two very welcoming members of staff and our drinks order was promptly taken. So far, so good. After perusing the familiar menu, one very nice waiter informed us of their ‘special’ dish meatballs with either pasta or rice. Being gluten-​intolerant I thought offering an alternative to pasta was a nice touch, so I went for it as part of the set menu along with garlic mushrooms to start. The starter came out quickly and was, well, exactly the same as Donatello’s. Still good. Then the main course came out. It was, in essence, a bed of risotto rice topped with six meatballs and generic tomato sauce poured on top. Not so good. I could have made it myself and done a much better job — I should have stuck with my gluten-​free carbonara. To make matters worse, after the waitress said she’d go and get parmesan and black pepper, we watched her serve two other people and stand chatting to her colleague before finally looking over to us and seeing us waiting for her. True, she was very apologetic, but still…
So, after a slightly disappointing main course, I decided I’d give them a chance to redeem themselves with dessert. Although there’d been less than ten minutes between our starter and main, our dessert didn’t arrive until after 20 minutes I called someone over to ask what had happened to it. It was then brought over immediately by the fifth person to have served us that evening. I had my usual Coppa Pietro (lemon sorbet, meringue, whipped cream and lemon sauce) and it was as lovely as ever.
I don’t mean to do the staff a disservice, as nobody was rude and they all seemed like lovely people, but they were highly disorganised and didn’t really seem to know what they were doing. I’d hate to go here in a larger group as I’m sure it would be a total disaster. I think I’ll stick with Donatello’s in future.

I love Pinocchio — the food is beautiful and not too expensive. Situated close to the Royal Pavilion and the Theatre Royal, there is a great atmosphere and the place is popular with families especially for birthday parties and other celabrations. The service is excellent and the staff very helpful and friendly.
My only complaint about the restaurant is that there is no toilet on the ground floor but they allow disabled people to use the staff toilet which is situated on the that floor.

No, no, no. This place is not worth more than two stars. It may be priced rather generously but the same couldn’t be said of its flavour or portion size. When it comes to Italian cooking you either do it well or you do it cheap and serve massive portions. This place does neither. Whilst the prices may be good they should just commit to their budget status rather than trying to pass off as an Italian «restaurant.» I would say it was more of a diner, the kind of place Italians would remember from motorway service stations in Italy. When reading this do bear in mind that I’ve only visited once but also consider how anywhere could have got it so wrong.

For what you pay you cannot complain really, I had the spaghetti Bolognaise and was pleasantly surprised with the quality. For students especially this is a great place to go if you need to eat before a night out.
A 2 course menu will set you back £6.95 whilst 3 courses is only £8.95 with a 10% service charge on top. Inside is nice whilst in the summer the outside patio which is slightly sheltered is a great way of soaking up the Brighton atmosphere during your meal.
On my visit the stuff were funny and seemed to be enjoying themselves which is very important if you want to enjoy yourself as moody waiters always annoy me!

It should probably be taken into consideration that I was quite inebriated during my entire experience of dealing with this particularly eatery, something which may or may not have influenced my enjoyment one way or another.
My friends and I were relaxing, enjoying a drink in the Fitzherberts outside seating area, when we noticed a billboard advertising the pizzeria opposite, ‘Pinocchio’s’, which sold margherita pizza for £3.50, american hot pizza for £3.50, and spaghetti bolognese for £3.50. Intrigued, we went inside, ordered ourselves a few pizzas, went back outside to our drinks, then returned again ten minutes later to find our food ready, promptly took it back with us to our nice little seating area, and proudly gorged upon our prizes in front of all our friends. The pizza was tasty, the service was ok, and, as aforementioned, the price was very, very reasonable.

An italian food restaurant which serves excellent food and gives great value for money, much like it’s larger sister restaurant Donatellos. The only difference between Donatellos and here is that Pinocchio’s is smaller and as a result the staff seem less harassed, the food is slightly better and eating here feels more of an intimate affair.
The menu offers a good range of dishes and starters, mains and desserts are all on offer. I have to recommend the pizza as this has to be one of, if not the favourite dish of mine that this restaurant serves.
If you have never eaten here, do treat yourself one evening — you are guarenteed a lovely meal at a decent price with a good atmosphere.

Much nicer than it’s sister restaurant (Donatellos).
Although the menus are the same for some reason the food here is fare better ! It’s a smaller restaruant and not as busy as Donatellos.
Seating is on two floors — and there is a private room on the second floor which can be booked for parties.
Gets extremely busy pre-​theatre (due to it’s location near to the Theatre Royal) but if you tell them you have tickets they are experts on serving you quickly.
Good value for money.

The ideal place to eat before going to see a show at either the Theatre Royal or the Dome.
The food is great with a wide range of pizza, pasta and other dishes. We went for the 2 course deal which is only slightly more expensive than a main course, so saving a fair bit. There is also a 3 course which we didn’t have time for, but saves even more.
I would however suggest that you don’t sit outside when it’s raining. Even though the seats have a canopy over them, I still ended up getting wet as the water poured of the canopy, hit the flower pots and splashed back onto me — much to the amusement of my campanions!
The staff were friendly and helpful, even though it took us a long time deciding wether we would be sitting inside or out, who was sitting on what table and what we wanted to eat.