An optical receiver includes: a waveform distortion compensator to perform an operation on digital signal representing an optical signal generated by an A/D converter to compensate for waveform distortion of the optical signal; a phase detector to generate phase information representing sampling phase of the A/D converter; a phase adjuster to generate digital signal representing an optical signal in which the sampling phase of the A/D converter is adjusted from an output signal of the waveform distortion compensator using the phase information; a demodulator to generate a demodulated signal from the output signal of the phase adjuster; a phase controller to control the sampling phase of the A/D converter; a peak detector to detect a peak value of the phase information while the sampling phase of the A/D converter is controlled by the phase controller; and a compensation controller to control the waveform distortion compensator using the peak value.