Alpine Smiles Lugano
According to our open methodology, this clinic scored 76.7/100 for transparency, reputation, service accessibility, and digital visibility.
Overall rank: #9 of 24 ranked clinics · Last checked: 8 September 2026
76.7/100
Positions by Rating Profile
- Overall Transparency & Trust#976.7/100
- Best for Expats#976.8/100
- Best for Dental Implants#774/100
- Best for Emergency Dental Care#583.3/100
- Best Price Transparency#1050.9/100
- Best English-speaking Clinics#581/100
- Best for Families / Children#583.6/100
- Sleep Dentistry (GA / deep sedation)not ranked
General Anaesthesia & Deep Sedation
Whether the clinic documents treatment under general anaesthesia or deep / twilight sedation — "sleep dentistry", where the patient is asleep and unaware (does not feel, see, or hear the procedure). Ordinary conscious sedation, where the patient stays awake and responsive, does not count here. This is informational and does not affect the transparency score.
- ? General anaesthesia / deep sedation (sleep dentistry) — Not verified No sedation or general-anaesthesia statement was found on the pages read; not asserted either way.
Summary
Aligner-focused dental clinic in the Cassarate district of Lugano, run by an Italian and English speaking team of five dentists whose Ticino authorisations MedReg records at this exact street address. The clinic publishes a very deep treatment tree including its own imaging pages, a virtual tour and a before-and-after gallery, but no prices.
Strengths
- Information Transparency: 20 of 20 points.
- Reputation & Reviews: 18.5 of 20 points.
- Medical Infrastructure: 15 of 15 points.
- Communication & Service: 8.5 of 10 points.
- No red flags identified in public sources.
Weaknesses
- Price Transparency: 0 of 15 verifiable points (missing: prices or price ranges published; cleaning price listed; filling price listed; crown price listed; implant price listed; consultation price listed; x-ray / imaging price listed)
Score Breakdown
Every criterion below is scored from public sources. ✓ verified yes · ✗ verified no / not found · ◐ partial · ? unverified (scores 0, not a negative finding).
Information Transparency
20 / 20
Whether basic facts about the clinic - its team, premises, services, and location - are publicly verifiable.
| ✓ | Has a working website Read live 2026-09-07: HTTP 200 with real clinic content (treatment tree, team, virtual tour, insurance page, contacts), not a placeholder. [s1] | 4/4 |
| ✓ | Dentist names listed The clinic's own team page names its treating doctors: Med. Dent. Sebastian Däröste, Med. Dent. David Raickovic, Med. Dent. Andrea Ottaviani, Med. Dent. Edoardo Cunati and Med. Dent. Carola Caivano, plus its named assisting staff. [s2] | 3/3 |
| ✓ | Dentist specializations listed The clinic publishes its founders' fields in its own schema.org markup and page text — "Dr. Sebastian Däröste, Dentist, Invisalign Diamond Provider" — and describes them as lecturers and Key Opinion Leaders for Invisalign and GC. [s1] [s2] | 2/2 |
| ✓ | Real clinic photos The clinic publishes a virtual tour of its premises and a before-and-after smile gallery on its own domain, alongside its own interior imagery. [s1] | 2/2 |
| ✓ | Service list published The clinic publishes a concrete treatment list with a page per item across teeth straightening, cosmetic dentistry, general dentistry, paediatric dentistry, surgery and imaging — roughly thirty individual treatment pages. [s1] | 3/3 |
| ✓ | Clear contact details Address, phone +41 (0)91 970 24 24 and the e-mail smile@alpinesmiles.ch are published on the contact page and repeated in the footer; the phone matches the Google place record. [s3] | 2/2 |
| ✓ | English website version Complete EN/IT site; the English tree at /en carries the same treatment, team and contact pages as the Italian one. [s1] | 2/2 |
| ✓ | Address and map published "Via Pico 19, 6900 Lugano - Switzerland" with GeoCoordinates in the clinic's own structured data plus bus, bicycle, parking and ferry directions; the address matches the Google place record and the practice address MedReg holds. [s3] | 2/2 |
Price Transparency
0 / 15
Whether patients can estimate costs before visiting. Published price ranges count; exact prices are not required.
| ✗ | Prices or price ranges published The insurance-and-financing page was read in full: it explains Swiss supplementary insurance cover and financing but publishes no treatment price or range. No tariff page exists anywhere in the navigation. [s4] | 0/3 |
| ✗ | Cleaning price listed The check-ups and dental hygiene page carries no price. [s1] | 0/2 |
| ✗ | Filling price listed The composite fillings page carries no price. [s1] | 0/2 |
| ✗ | Crown price listed The veneers, crowns and bridges page carries no price. [s1] | 0/2 |
| ✗ | Implant price listed The implants page carries no price. [s1] | 0/2 |
| ✗ | Consultation price listed No first-visit or consultation fee is published on the clinic's own pages. [s1] [s4] | 0/2 |
| ✗ | X-ray / imaging price listed The clinic publishes five separate radiography pages but no price on any of them. [s1] | 0/2 |
Reputation & Reviews
18.5 / 20
Public review signals. The Google rating is adjusted with a Bayesian prior (rating 4.0, weight 25) so a 5.0 from a handful of reviews does not outrank a 4.8 from hundreds.
| ✓ | Google rating (Bayesian-adjusted) Re-read live on the place page in a browser on 2026-09-08 and unchanged at 4.9, which is also the figure the clinic declares in its own AggregateRating markup — a markup that states no count. The star histogram's weighted mean, 4.880, reproduces the published figure. [gmp1] [gmpb] | 6/6 |
| ◐ | Google review volume Headline count read on the place page in a browser on 2026-09-08 — the base the clinic's own rating markup omits. The histogram sums to the same figure: 112 five-star, 2 four-star, 0 three-star, 0 two-star and 3 one-star = 117. [gmpb] | 2/3 |
| ✓ | Review recency Browser 2026-09-08, 8 visible reviews, sort: Google's own "Most relevant" order. Two of the eight are one month old; the rest run 5 months to 3 years. [gmpb] | 3/3 |
| ✓ | Clinic responds to reviews Browser 2026-09-08, 8 visible reviews, sort "Most relevant": the owner has replied to seven of the eight. [gmpb] | 2/2 |
| ✓ | No recurring complaints Browser 2026-09-08, 8 visible reviews, sort "Most relevant": no review below five stars surfaced and no repeated theme is readable. One-star and two-star ratings together are 3 of 117, or 2.6 per cent of the base. [gmpb] | 2/2 |
| ✓ | No suspicious review patterns Browser 2026-09-08: histogram 112/2/0/0/3 with a mean of 4.880 against a published 4.9; three one-star and two four-star ratings sit under the average, dates run from one month to three years and the accounts name different treatments and clinicians. No manipulation signature. [gmpb] | 2/2 |
| ✓ | Active Facebook presence The clinic links its own Facebook page facebook.com/alpinesmiles.ch and Instagram account from its site. [s1] | 1/1 |
| ? | TripAdvisor presence Not checked in this pass. | 0/0.5 |
| ✓ | Other review platforms A Trustpilot review page exists for alpinesmiles.ch; the practice also holds an Invisalign provider profile. [m2] | 0.5/0.5 |
Medical Infrastructure
15 / 15
The range of publicly documented equipment and services. This measures documented availability, not clinical quality.
| ✓ | On-site X-ray The clinic publishes its own pages for intraoral (bitewing / periapical), panoramic (OPT / OPG) and cephalometric radiography, and offers referral imaging to other practices; the Google place record also carries the "Dental radiology" category. [s1] | 2/2 |
| ✓ | CBCT (3D imaging) The clinic publishes a dedicated page "CBCT – 3D dental imaging" and advertises referral CBCT imaging for other dentists. [s1] | 2/2 |
| ✓ | Implantology Dedicated implants page under "Surgery & teeth replacement"; the Google place record also carries the "Dental implants provider" category. [s1] | 2/2 |
| ✓ | Orthodontics A whole "Teeth Straightening" section with Invisalign, fixed appliances and separate child, teen and adult pages. [s1] | 2/2 |
| ✓ | Oral surgery Dedicated pages for wisdom teeth, extractions, gingivectomy and crown lengthening. [s1] | 2/2 |
| ✓ | Pediatric dentistry A dedicated "Paediatric Dentistry" section with first visit, preventive care and fissure sealant pages; the Google place record also carries the "Pediatric dentist" category. [s1] | 1.5/1.5 |
| ✓ | Emergency care Dedicated "Emergency dentistry" page and an emergency option in the clinic's own booking form; the Google place record carries the "Emergency dental service" category. [s1] | 1.5/1.5 |
| ✓ | Works with international patients The team page publishes the spoken languages of each named practitioner ("Spoken languages:", carried in the page's own knowsLanguage structured data), and the clinic runs a full English site alongside the Italian one. The insurance page addresses Swiss supplementary cover rather than international patients, so that page is not the basis. Verified live 2026-09-07. [s2] | 2/2 |
Communication & Service
8.5 / 10
How easy it is to contact the clinic, get answers, and book - especially for international patients.
| ✓ | WhatsApp / LINE available A working WhatsApp link (wa.me/41919702424) is published on the clinic's own site. [s3] | 2/2 |
| ? | Response speed No response-time data available in this pass. | 0/1.5 |
| ✓ | English spoken The clinic runs a complete English version of its own site and lists spoken languages per team member. [s1] | 2.5/2.5 |
| ✓ | Pre-visit consultation possible The clinic publishes a booking form that asks which consultation is wanted (first visit, teeth-straightening consultation, veneers consultation, implants consultation, hygiene, emergency) and promises to come back to arrange it. [s2] | 1.5/1.5 |
| ✓ | Clear service explanations Each treatment has its own page in plain language, including a patient-facing explainer "Are dental X-Rays safe?". [s1] | 1/1 |
| ✓ | Convenient opening hours The clinic's own structured data publishes Monday–Thursday 09:00–19:00 and Friday 08:00–12:00, i.e. into the evening on four days; Saturday and Sunday are stated as closed. [s3] [gmp1] | 1.5/1.5 |
AI & Search Visibility
7 / 10
Whether the clinic is discoverable when patients search - including via AI assistants. Checked with fixed queries: "best dentist Switzerland", "English speaking dentist Switzerland", "dental implants Switzerland", "emergency dentist Switzerland", "Switzerland dental clinic for expats".
| ✓ | Mentioned for: best dentist Switzerland Web search results for "best dentist Lugano" collected centrally on 2026-09-07 (AI-visibility pass). The clinic's own English home page is returned at rank 8. [bsq1] | 1/1 |
| ✗ | Mentioned for: English speaking dentist Switzerland Web search results for "English speaking dentist Lugano" collected centrally on 2026-09-07. The returned list is entirely on-target for Lugano, Ticino, so this is a checked negative; the clinic does not appear. [bsq2] | 0/1 |
| ✓ | Mentioned for: dental implants Switzerland Web search results for "dental implants Lugano" collected centrally on 2026-09-07. The clinic's own page alpinesmiles.ch/en/perche-alpine-smiles is returned at rank 7. [bsq3] | 1/1 |
| ✗ | Mentioned for: emergency dentist Switzerland Web search results for "emergency dentist Lugano" collected centrally on 2026-09-07. The returned list is on-target for Lugano; the clinic does not appear. [bsq4] | 0/1 |
| ? | Mentioned for: Switzerland dental clinic for expats Query not run in the AI-visibility pass: the query budget ran the expats query only for the first research city of each country, which for Switzerland was Zurich. | 0/1 |
| ✓ | Structured data on website schema.org JSON-LD carrying Dentist, PostalAddress, GeoCoordinates, OpeningHoursSpecification, AggregateRating and Person types. One defect worth recording: several knowsLanguage values in that markup contain an untranslated machine-generation artefact ("Please provide the text you would like me to translate.") rather than a language. [s1] | 1.5/1.5 |
| ✓ | Google indexing quality A name search returns the clinic's own domain at rank 1 and at three further positions of twenty, alongside its own Trustpilot, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn presence and an Invisalign provider profile (web search 2026-09-07). [giq1] | 2/2 |
| ✓ | Dedicated service pages Roughly thirty individual treatment pages grouped by discipline, including five separate radiography pages, rather than one generic list. [s1] | 1.5/1.5 |
Ranking leaders in AI answers
The queries above are this index's own check. The three leading clinics have also been measured in full: how often ChatGPT and Gemini name them when a patient asks them to recommend a dentist.
- #1ZurichDental Bahnhofplatz17.8 of 100View report → report in German
- #2CHD Clinique d'Hygiène Dentaire Genève Cornavin46.3 of 100View report → report in German
- #3Clinique Dentaire de Chantepoulet29.2 of 100View report → report in German
Measured by Ansmeter, 7 October 2026. Ansmeter is an affiliated service. Its figure is not part of this rating and does not affect positions — scores change only when public data changes.
Licensing & Credentials
Whether the clinic publishes its operating licence and the dentists working there together with their professional licence numbers. A verified “not published” is recorded as a red flag; data we have not checked yet is shown as unverified and carries no penalty.
Clinic operating licence: not checked against public sources yet — unverified, no penalty
Dentists & MedReg records
| Dentist | Specialization | MedReg No. | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Med. Dent. Sebastian Däröste [reg1] | Dentist; Invisalign Diamond Provider, co-founder | MedReg 215172, GLN 7601009226496 | Cantonal authorisation active; the specialist title is a recognised foreign one, not a Swiss federal title. |
| Med. Dent. David Raickovic [reg1] | Dentist; co-founder | MedReg 217125 | Cantonal authorisation active; the specialist title is a recognised foreign one, not a Swiss federal title. |
| Med. Dent. Carola Caivano [reg1] | Dentist | MedReg 200637 | Cantonal authorisation to practise under own responsibility: granted and active, no restrictions. |
| Med. Dent. Edoardo Cunati [reg1] | Dentist | MedReg 85160 | Cantonal authorisation to practise under own responsibility: granted and active, no restrictions. |
| Med. Dent. Andrea Ottaviani [reg1] | Dentist | MedReg 56643 | Cantonal authorisation to practise under own responsibility: granted and active, no restrictions. |
Red Flags
No red flags identified in the public sources we reviewed.
Data We Could Not Verify
- Reputation & Reviews: TripAdvisor presence
- Communication & Service: Response speed
- AI & Search Visibility: Mentioned for: Switzerland dental clinic for expats
Unverified items score 0 points but are not treated as negative findings. If you can document any of them, please send a correction.
Contact Information
| Website | https://www.alpinesmiles.ch/en |
|---|---|
| Phone | +41 91 970 24 24 |
| +41 91 970 24 24 | |
| https://www.facebook.com/alpinesmiles.ch/ | |
| Google Maps | Map listing |
| Address | Via Pico 19, 6900 Lugano, Switzerland |
Contact details are provided for identification only and may change; verify with the clinic directly.
Sources
| ID | Source | What it supports | Accessed |
|---|---|---|---|
| s1 | https://www.alpinesmiles.ch/en | Clinic website (English version): live body content, full treatment and imaging tree, structured data, virtual tour and gallery links | 2026-09-07 |
| s2 | https://www.alpinesmiles.ch/en/meet-the-team | Named treating dentists and assisting staff, and the clinic's own consultation booking form | 2026-09-07 |
| s3 | https://www.alpinesmiles.ch/en/contact | Address, phone, e-mail, WhatsApp link, published opening hours and access directions | 2026-09-07 |
| s4 | https://www.alpinesmiles.ch/en/insurance-financing | Insurance and financing page read in full; establishes that no treatment prices are published | 2026-09-07 |
| gmp1 | https://www.google.com/maps/place/Alpine+Smiles+Lugano+-+Clinica+De… | Live Google Maps place record: rating, address, phone, website, categories, opening hours and pin coordinates | 2026-09-07 |
| reg1 | https://www.healthreg-public.admin.ch/medreg/search | MedReg, the federal statutory register of the medical professions (FOPH): dentist records with GLN, diploma, federal titles and the cantonal authorisation to practise, including the operating entity at this address | 2026-09-07 |
| reg2 | https://www.healthreg-public.admin.ch/betreg/search | BetReg, the federal facility module: queried for the city of Lugano, 44 entities returned and none of them a dental practice (coverage follows narcotics authorisations, so absence is not evidence) | 2026-09-07 |
| m2 | https://www.trustpilot.com/review/alpinesmiles.ch | Independent review-platform presence | 2026-09-07 |
| bsq1 | search:best dentist Lugano | Canonical visibility query, web search, AI-visibility pass | 2026-09-07 |
| bsq2 | search:English speaking dentist Lugano | Canonical visibility query, web search, AI-visibility pass | 2026-09-07 |
| bsq3 | search:dental implants Lugano | Canonical visibility query, web search, AI-visibility pass | 2026-09-07 |
| bsq4 | search:emergency dentist Lugano | Canonical visibility query, web search, AI-visibility pass | 2026-09-07 |
| giq1 | search:"Alpine Smiles" Lugano dentista | Name search used to judge indexing quality of the clinic's own pages | 2026-09-07 |
| gmpb | https://www.google.com/maps/place/x/@46.0079011,8.969401,17z/data=!… | Live Google Maps place page opened in a browser on 2026-09-08: headline rating and review count, the five star-histogram buckets, eight most-relevant reviews with dates and owner replies, the full published week of opening hours, and the place's own lead photography of the branded reception | 2026-09-08 |
Change History
| Date | Change |
|---|---|
| 2026-09-08 | Browser reputation pass: place page opened, the 4.9 the clinic self-declares confirmed and given the base its own markup omits (117), histogram reconciled, recency, owner-reply state, complaint and manipulation readings recorded. |
| 2026-09-07 | Adversarial verification: all five MedReg records re-read live and confirmed; David Raickovic's orthodontic title corrected — the register types it as a recognition of a Croatian postgraduate title of 2016-11-09 (MEBEKO 2025-10-30), not as a Swiss federal title; worksWithForeigners raised to true on the team page's published per-practitioner spoken languages; the OneDoc source was re-read and removed because it is a Lugano category index that names neither this clinic nor its address or telephone; BetReg re-queried for Lugano (44 companies, overflow flag false, none dental); the Google place re-read live and the 4.9 rating confirmed. |
| 2026-09-07 | Initial data collection (automated): clinic website read in English including the team, contact and financing pages; Google Maps place record read live for rating, categories, hours and coordinates; all five named treating dentists verified in the federal MedReg register, with the co-founder's full record showing the operating entity RKL Dental Sagl at this street address; BetReg queried for the whole city of Lugano and found to hold no dental practice at all; canonical visibility queries taken from the central AI-visibility pass. Review count, recency, owner replies, complaint reading and manipulation reading left null and queued for a manual browser check. |
A question or a correction?
Have a question, a suggestion, or a correction to this page? Get in touch — we read every message. Verified data corrections are reviewed against sources and applied with a public change-history entry.