Villa Lario Resort Mandello

Beautiful place, quiet and serene, feels very intimate as so few rooms. Front desk helpful with boat tour timings etc from nearby towns. Nearest town ten min walk away with a supermarket on the way, some small nice local cafes present. Meal at the Amandus was lovely - lots of extra touches in between courses that were very tasty with a stunning view. Breakfast was very high quality, incredibly tasty, more a list of items on the menu but they accomodated requests easily. Meal at the Grill disappointing - limited options for a five star hotel, unable to change beef to chicken burger, pizza was a shock - a series of small crusty base triangles already cut up with a spoon of tomato sauce and some soft cheese on top - very surprised at this as it was certainly not a pizza. Lovely room with terrace but food could be improved at the Grill.

Fantastic Place. Very quiet, almost like you are at the resort alone, think there are 10 suites. Service was great, food excellent, we will be back. Has a private boat dock and helipad. We did a private boat tour, which we moved around a few times due to changeable weather, no issues here the hotel was very accommodating.

Beautiful location, gorgeous rooms, and wonderful food and drinks. We had such an amazing time-the service was top notch, and the views were spectacular. We chose the room in the cave and it did not disappoint,

What a truly wonderful place. We visited in April 2023 arriving on the opening day of their summer season. We were made to feel incredibly welcome with great staff, a beautiful room, amazing food & spectacular surroundings. All the staff are so attentive with great attention to detail. A special mention for Ahmed who looked after us brilliantly.

If you're looking for a true 5-star resort, this isn't it. While there was nothing glaringly bad about our stay at Villa Lario, there also truly wasn't anything great. I was kind of shocked the reviews were so consistently positive after arriving, as it may be a 4-star hotel, but it's not a 5-star resort. I'll start by saying the staff was friendly and attentive, and the concierge was actually very responsive & helpful leading up to our trip. That being said, we would not recommend staying here nor would we return for a number of reasons: -The location is right off of a loud and busy road, which takes away from the secluded/exclusive feel you're likely looking for by visiting Lake Como. Perhaps it's on us for not realizing, but VL is about 20 minutes from the closest ferry stop in Varenna and they do not have a house car. This meant any time we wanted to go anywhere, we were paying about 35 Euro & 20+ minutes to get to Varenna via taxi each way plus ferry travel time - this was not ideal and consumed a lot of time during our stay. A "5-star resort" in a remote location should absolutely have a house car. -The above point was exacerbated because there just isn't much to the property. There is a lounge bar, which was always empty and never staffed - each time we wanted to sit and have a drink, we had to ask the concierge to staff the bar. There is no spa or anything like that, so on a rainy day there was virtually nothing to do. -The main villa looks very nice from the outside and the view is beautiful of course, but overall the property had an outdated look to it. Perhaps it's the furniture, but in general, the entire property felt very dated vs. classic, authentic, or luxury. -We stayed in one of the suites in the D****na which felt very dark and cramped. The bathroom has a single sink, which is almost never the case at a luxury hotel, and the window which we were told was a privacy window with a mirror on the other side, was in fact transparent from the outside. For this reason, we almost always kept the blinds closed as there were often other gusts passing, so our room had virtually no windows. -The menu at the pool and lounge was limited and just OK. The Amandus restaurant food was quite good, but the ambiance felt very sterile. Overall, while Villa Lario is not a BAD hotel and the staff is lovely, it's simply not the luxury experience it is marketed to be and leaves too much to be desired given it's somewhat remote location.