FOOD & DINING
ALL PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE INN AT LITTLE WASHINGTON
‘A Delicious New Documentary’ to Debut BY MARY ANN BARTON
In the high-stress business of luxury dining, The Inn at Little Washington has thrived. The intimate, 30-table restaurant with a 14,000-bottle wine cellar has won countless awards — but there’s still some room for a side of humor, according to the restaurant’s chef and owner, the legendary Patrick O'Connell. A new documentary, "The Inn at Little Washington: A Delicious New Documentary," is set to air this spring on PBS. O’Connell answered our questions about the restaurant and inn, located just 70 miles west of Alexandria (and well worth the trip).
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alexandrialivingmagazine.com • January / February 2020
Chef Patrick O'Connell
You show a sense of humor in the new documentary coming out about The Inn at Little Washington. Did it come into play over the years as you built and ran your inn and restaurant? A good sense of humor is an indispensable trait to have in any high-stress business. It keeps things in perspective. Our guests like to know that we're enjoying what we do. We take our work seriously, but not ourselves.
Can you tell our readers how you decided on the location for the inn, back in the 1970s? What was the process like trying to find a place? I think everyone has a geographical spot in the universe where they belong. If they find their spot, everything will fall into place. I bought a mountain shack out here when I was 21 and never wanted to leave, so I opened a catering business with a friend using a wood-burning cookstove and an electric frying pan. About six years later, it morphed into the Inn at Little Washington. It has been steadily evolving since 1978. It is still the place where I'm most comfortable and will always call home.