Hotel Ristorante Giardinetto

An excellent hotel in a beautiful lakeside location on one of the smallest - but less crowded - Italian lakes. There are lots of facilities at the hotel including a Michelin graded restaurant (which was a bit fancy for us) and an outdoor infinity pool plus lake swimming if you were brave. We weren't! Pettenasco is a small town but has some excellent restaurants, a supermarket plus bars and specialist shops (e.g. a cheese emporium near the hotel) but is not jammed full of tourists. The lake boat service stops at the hotel and is great for getting around as the station is a pig to get to and from, especially if you arrive on the little shuttle train from Domodossola with any large suitcases. Our superior lake view room was spacious and well equipped with a massive balcony (Room 109). The staff are lovely, and very helpful.

Beautiful hotel. Welcoming staff at reception. Great choice of food & drinks at breakfast lunch dinnertime with friendly & helpful staff during these times. It has a rooftop terrace which was busy most evenings, but made a change to sit & have a cocktail/ food or nibbles if you fancied. Comfortable Room with a tranquill outlook from balcony. Will definitely return again as it was a lovely place to visit.

Hotel Giardinetto is a welcoming, clean, luxury hotel located by the lake d’Orta located at a stone throw of Orta St Giulio and quite close to Stresa and Mottarone. Rooms are spacious and clean with balconies which offer a great view on the lake. Despite being along a main road, the hotel is very quiet. Importantly, the hotel also offers a great restaurant with excellent and imaginative dishes. This hotel is perfect if you want to visit the stunning region esp. lakes d’Orta and Maggiore. Staff is particularly friendly and welcoming.

My wife and myself were celebrating our 35th wedding anniversary and chose lake Orta to spend and celebrate there.|We had read the reviews on Hotel Giardinetto and thought this would be the ideal Hotel.|When we arrived at the reception,a very friendly and helpful receptionist greeted us,and I do apologise that I never took her name. |Our room at the time wasn’t ready as we had taken a early flight into Milan and got to the hotel before lunchtime,but the receptionist led us to the bar area for us to have some lunch.|The room we had was very clean, modern and spacious,with tea coffee facilities which had come in handy.Our balcony which opened up to the lake and the stunning views was breathtaking.|We had dinner that night in the restaurant ,the food was superb with great choices .There is also a roof top,bar which serves food as well,in both cases booking is advisable. Although the roof top bar is shut on Wednesday night, there is another bar in hotel.|We cannot thank the hotel,and all the staff who made our 35th anniversary very special to us.|We will definitely return!!

This hotel was part of our Great Rail Journeys 'Italian Lakes' holiday. Nice looking hotel in a fabulous location. The Reception staff were lovely and very welcoming. We arrived at our room - the first disappointment! It was NOT a lake view, we benefited from a 'road view' and the road in question was busy, fast, noisy and almost on a level with our tiny balcony - if the balcony door was open it was impossible to hold a conversation in the room.|In the evening, before dinner (in the hotel), we thought we'd have a pre-dinner drink on the roof terrace. Second disappointment - we arrived on the roof terrace, lovely views across the lake (which our room didn't enjoy), but no sooner had we strolled forward to admire the view, when a VERY rude bar staff member made it VERY clear that we were not welcome unless we'd booked! We were practically escorted out - outrageous! We had booked a hotel with a roof terrace with views over Lake Orta, and we were refused admittance onto that roof terrace. All we wanted was a pre-dinner drink, we'd already booked dinner downstairs in the restaurant.|This was our first night, we had booked a single night prior to the arrival of our group, so we had dinner alone in a lovely part of the restaurant, great menu and nice food.|The following day, our group arrived then things changed - Third disappointment - we weren't allowed to sit in that part of the restaurant, we had a different and not very inspiring menu and when the food arrived the portions were miniscule. There appeared to be just one cruit set between 4 tables. We were invited to help ourselves to salad, which was merely lettuce, tinned sweetcorn and tomatoes.|On several occasions I awoke during the night actually feeling hungry!!|Needless to say, we won't be hurrying back to this hotel.

The hotel is small and somewhat tired, its saving grace is that it is in a beautiful location. The buffet style breakfast was great, with a vast choice of what to have. The evening meal although I enjoyed most of the food, was very limited choice as there were only 3 choices for starter, main and dessert, some of the group did not like any of the choices. There is a roof top bar, which you need to reserve, and the prices of the drinks are more expensive than the restaurant and bar downstairs (the same bottle of wine we had down stairs was 10 euros more on the roof top bar. We were made to feel like second class citizens as people who were not guests at the hotel were given preference over us. No-one had explained that we had to make reservations for the roof top bar, the manager of the roof top bar (the older gentleman), rather than explain to us that a reservation was required he rudely, told us to drink down stairs, when we questioned the pricing. It would not have been so bad if there were other places to go and have a drink in the evening, so we ended up going to our rooms after dinner. My room was at the back of the hotel, if you are a light sleeper, the noise of the cars and motorbikes could be a nuisance, It is much worse during the day by the pool, as the noise can get a bit irritating. The hotel could do with having some low level music playing to drown out the traffic. Aside from the rude rooftop bar manager, the rest of the waiters and waitresses were very friendly and accommodating.

Stay at hotel was excellent, reception staff were fantastic they couldn't do enough for us. The room we stayed in overlooked Lake Orta, The room our daughter was in was oddly shaped but ideal for one, 2 may be a bit of a tight squeeze. The breakfast selections were of good quality and catered for all tastes with continental and cooked offerings. The Rooftop bar was an ideal setting although the weather wasn't great we made good use of it. Our only complaint (not of the hotel) was the lack of transport to local areas. No buses or Taxis unless you book well in advance. There are a few water Taxis available at restricted times during the day which were reasonably priced and a pleasant trip over to Orta San Guilo and Omenga for the market on Thursday.

Stayed over Easter weekend for one night with two friends. Service was outstanding: – A receptionist met us at our car and guided us to parking – Our room was upgraded to better fit three guests – Breakfast had a great selection – Staff happily gave extra towels – Took time to recommend local sights and places to eat The room was clean, well-equipped, and had lovely views. Highly recommend Hotel Giardinetto. The area is beautiful, and I’ll definitely stay here again.