Okay, we didn't stay at this hotel but we did eat at the attached restaurant 2 nights out of our 5 nights stay in LaThuile. We stayed at a private apartment of a relative. However, I searched tripadvisor for the restaurant only and this place doesn't appear so I am writing this review here instead and hope that it gets published.

The restaurant was sweet and the food was good. Nothing super fancy but that's how we like it. Simple with no pretensions. What we learned from the owner was that the place was owned by his father and that he after he passed away the 2 brothers have tried to keep the business going. There was a sincerity to the staff/owners that we found endearing so much that we went back again.

I don't know the timing of the father passing away but I suspect that these bad reviews were the result of bad personal timing for a family run business...who knows. But we enjoyed the service and the food enough to go back for seconds!

We love small, characterful, family-run hotels, so the Piccolo San Bernardo seemed a really good choice against the more corporate offerings of a lot of ski companies. The people running it were extremely friendly and well-intentioned, and most of the guests seemed to enjoy it. Our room was very spacious with lots of storage. If all you were looking for was a budget base for skiing this could be a good choice.

However, we were not happy with our choice:
1. The major issue, and the reason we changed hotels: The room was very cold (not great for wintertime, and a disaster for my arthritis). After being given several excuses by the staff ('last week's guests left it off all week', 'we've switched it on now - it should be working soon', etc) their solution was to give us an oil-burner. As oil burners should only be lit in ventilated rooms, this rather defeated the object of warming the room. We could also see no evidence of a smoke detector in the room, which made us nervous of keeping it lit. Whilst this might have been their only solution that evening, the series of excuses previously given meant we weren't confident that they would solve the problem the following day.
2. The dining room was also equally cold, so it was impossible to warm up anywhere.
3. The waitress refused to speak Italian with us, because she wanted to practise her English. (We travel frequently to Italy so we can practise our Italian, and we explained this, in Italian, but to no avail)
4. Our first night lasagne was warm on the outside, and freezing in the middle, making us suspect it was not freshly made. The waitress also felt the need to explain to us what a lasagne was!
5. The manager asked us to pay the bar bill each morning because "otherwise guests go off at the end of the week without paying". Neither this or the two previous comments made us feel they had respect for their guests.
6. The team were very 'in your face'. Our rep tried to pass this off as 'typical Italian' which we thought insulting to the professionalism of Italian hoteliers. (We have stayed in lots of budget family run Italian hotels, and the staff would never dream of pinching/slapping our cheeks as a greeting)

As a final PS, the Crystal rep handled our request to change hotels extremely poorly, leaving us in a very embarassing position with the well-meaning hotel staff.

The number of good reviews makes us nervous posting this, as our experiences clearly differ from other people's. We hope therefore that things were sorted out over the season. We would probably have remained in the hotel had we been on a city break, only returning to sleep. But coming back after skiing to a cold hotel and poor food was not a way we wanted to spend Christmas.

We have just got back from a lovely weeks ski holiday . The family who run the hotel couldn't have been more welcoming. The room was of a good size (especially for a skiing hotel), clean and for a 2 star hotel of a good standard. We all really enjoyed the food and felt there was more than sufficient choice and variety. Although the hotel is a (max) 10 minute walk to the cable car (there is a bus service) we hired lockers at the rental shop (under the cable car station) for 5 euros returnable deposit which meant we could leave our skis and boots and walk back to the hotel in our trainers!
Although they don't speak a lot of English at the hotel (were we in Italy!) they used translation software whenever things got complicated and we came away knowing a lot more Italian than we did when we arrived. Everyone we met in La Thuile was really friendly from the family who ran the hotel to the staff at the rental shop and the waitresses at La Cage. In terms of the skiing La Thuile suited our developing imtermediate skills.
We really enjoyed our stay and would definately return.

We loved our stay in this hotel. La Thuile itself is beautiful, and this cosy little hotel is the epitome of the old town.

While the ski slopes are a 10 minute walk away there is a free ski bus that picks up from outside the hotel and takes you direct to the gondola. there is a boot room at the front of the hotel for all your equipment to save on the expensive lockers.

The staff were very friendly and spoke very good English, the buffet breakfast was good. cereals, pastries, yoghurts, bread & spreads. The evening meal was a delight. Antipasti buffet of cheeses, salad, meats, first course normally of pasta (3 choices), second course (3 choices) and a dessert. As a vegetarian i was well catered for.

Fully recommend this hotel