Thirteen lakefront rooms and twenty-two residences on the eastern shore at Lezzeno — the smallest serious hotel on Lake Como, with an infinity pool that floats above the water and rooms whose terraces sit a metre off the surface.
"The most disciplined design statement on Lake Como — minimal, lake-edge, and small enough that staff know which espresso each guest takes by the second morning. The infinity pool's water meets the lake water at the same horizon line, and that single detail has been photographed more than the building."
Filario sits on the eastern shore of Lake Como at Lezzeno, on a stretch of the Strada Provinciale Lariana that runs between Bellagio and Como city. The property opened in 2014 as the first design-led hotel on the lake — at a moment when the established Como playbook was still grand 19th-century villa hotels in Cernobbio, Tremezzo and Bellagio. The building, by Milan-based studio Lissoni Casal Ribeiro, is a long horizontal volume of natural stone and glass set into the slope, with the pool deck and private beach on the lake side and the rooms terraced above. Filario joined the Member of Design Hotels collective at opening and has remained one of the only Italian Member properties continuously since.
The hotel side comprises thirteen rooms in three categories — Filario Room, Filario Suite, and Lake View Suite — all on the lake side of the building, all with private terraces that look directly across the water to Bellagio and the Punta Spartivento. Interiors are minimalist: natural wood paneling, white linens, slate bathrooms with rain showers, and full-height glass doors that slide open onto the terrace. The 22 residences, in a separate adjacent building, are larger one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments with full kitchens, designed for longer stays. Every accommodation is lake-facing; there are no garden- or road-side categories. The total inventory of 35 keys makes Filario one of the smallest five-star-equivalent properties on the lake — closer in scale to Passalacqua's 24 suites than to Villa d'Este's 152 rooms.
The pool is the property's signature image. Set on the lake-side terrace at the same level as the water and finished with a dark stone surround, the infinity edge meets the lake water with no apparent break — a small piece of choreography that has made Filario one of the most-photographed hotels on Italian Instagram. Below the pool deck is a private beach with a beach bar and a small fleet of paddleboards and Riva-style timber boats; the hotel runs sunset boat aperitivi as the standard in-house programme. Dining is in the lake-edge Filario Restaurant, a Lombard-Italian kitchen with a strong fish menu and a 250-bottle list weighted to the Italian north, plus the Beach Bar for daytime dining. There is no formal spa — a small wellness room with a hammam and one treatment room — but the hotel's working theory is that the lake itself is the wellness programme.
Lezzeno's position is its own argument. The eastern shore is quieter than Bellagio and Tremezzo, with no public lakefront promenade and very few hotels — the road runs above the lake, the houses below, and Filario is one of only two or three serious hotel addresses on the entire stretch. The crossing to Bellagio by the hotel's own boat takes seven minutes; the drive to Como city is forty. For honeymooners, anniversary couples, and the kind of solo traveller who wants Lake Como without the Bellagio crowd, this is the calmest serious answer on the lake. Filario is independently owned by the Italian-Swiss family who built it; it has been managed continuously by the same team since opening and operates on a deliberately small scale.
For Lake Como honeymoons that prioritize quiet over grandeur, Filario is the answer. The Lake View Suite is the central honeymoon booking — a corner unit with a wraparound terrace, a freestanding tub facing the water, and direct lake views from the bed. The hotel's small scale means the staff know which side of the lake the sun rises on for your terrace, and what time it does so for your wake-up coffee. The seven-minute boat crossing to Bellagio for dinner is the standard romantic loop.
A milestone anniversary at Filario can be calibrated upward through the residence categories — a one-bedroom Lake Residence for a long weekend, a two-bedroom for ten days. The residences come with full kitchens and are serviced daily, which makes them the right answer for the kind of anniversary trip that includes a private chef night, an inviting-friends-for-dinner night, and a closed-door night. Filario Restaurant handles every variant.
Filario is one of the few Lake Como hotels that genuinely works for the solo traveller. The smaller Filario Room category is well-priced for a five-star Como standard, the lake-edge dining room handles single covers without the awkwardness of grander rooms, and the morning routine — espresso on the terrace, swim, paddleboard — runs reliably without programming. The eastern-shore quiet is the substantive proposition.
Strada Provinciale Lariana 583, no. 96
22025 Lezzeno (Como)
Italy
Bellagio by hotel boat 7 minutes; Como city 40 minutes by road; Milan Malpensa Airport 90 minutes
35 keys (13 rooms + 22 residences)
Filario Room from €450/night
Filario Suite from €750/night
Lake View Suite from €1,100/night
One-Bedroom Residence from €900/night
Check-in: 3:00 PM
Check-out: 11:00 AM
Open seasonally April through October
Member of Design Hotels since 2014
Lakefront infinity pool
Private beach & beach bar
Filario Restaurant (lake fish menu)
Hotel boat to Bellagio
Hammam & treatment room
Paddleboards & Riva-style timber boats
Lissoni Casal Ribeiro architecture
From €450/night. The 13 hotel rooms book three to four months ahead for July and August weekends; September and June are the calmer high-season windows. The hotel closes from late October to early April.
Book This Hotel →The De Santis family's 1787 Moltrasio villa, World's 50 Best No. 1 in 2023 — 24 suites, the most decorated boutique on the lake.
Forty Patricia Urquiola suites at Torno on the eastern shore — the design-led counterpart to the grand villa hotels.
The 1910 Belle Époque palace in Tremezzo, De Santis family ownership since 1975 — 90 rooms, the floating Pool on the Lake.