A tilt compensating device and method of performing normal tilt compensation in the event of a servo emergency which may occur during reproduction of data from an optical recording medium are provided. The tilt compensating device includes: an optical pickup; a tilt adjusting unit that adjusts a tilt angle of the optical pickup; a jitter detecting unit that detects an amount of jitter in a reproduction signal output from the optical pickup; and a controlling unit that monitors speed at which the optical recording medium operates using a phase-locked loop (PLL) signal generated from the reproduction signal and the degree of focus of the optical pickup, performs an operation to return to a normal state if any abnormality occurs, and controls operation of the tilt adjusting unit by comparing an amount of jitter detected at regular intervals against a reference. The present invention provides more stable tilt compensation compared to a conventional approach controlling a tilt driver in real time while monitoring jitter, thus improving disk reproduction capability.