Star power
Julia Childās spirit lives on at the Inn at Little Washington
How good is this three-star Michelin marvel? Democrats and Republicans are willing to put aside their differences when they pick up their forks.
Three Michelin stars . . . in a restaurant in the middle of nowhere. But for decades, the Inn at Little Washington has drawn the chauffeured swells of DC to the Shenandoah foothills to revel in French haute cuisine and pray at the altar of its high priestess/inspiration Julia Child.
Forty-five years ago, when the man behind it all, Patrick OāConnell, was a young rural transplant cooking his way through Childās Mastering the Art of French Cooking on a wood burning stove in a cabin, the landscape didnāt look terribly different than it does now. Today, the town of Washingtonāpopulation 84āis the home of OāConnellās restaurant and correspondingly luxuriously 23-room hotel.Ā
With its chintz wallpaper-heavy interiors and wood burning fireplace (burning merrily away despite the 80 degree heat), Little Washingtonās aesthetic is a marriage of country club, posh retirement home and lived-in stately manorānot to mention a living history museum akin to Colonial Williamsburg.Ā
Over the years, the Inn has hosted a storied DC set. Baggy-suited Clinton staffers made this their spot in the 1990s. The Reagans came by helicopter and decoy helicopter. Andrea Mitchell and her husband, former head of the Fed Alan Greenspan, celebrate their anniversary here every year, and Naomi Biden and her husband started comingĀ not long after their White House wedding. Judge Alito is here on the regular, and Hollywood glitterati like Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds have made the pilgrimage. At one point, Barbra Streisand dropped by for lunchāeven though the restaurant doesnāt serve lunch. They served it to Streisand.
How to seat the guests is the constant dance of the dining room. Men are given white carnations to pin to their lapelsāor red ones if theyāre a returning guest. With so many people driving in from DC, one wonders if the carnations might be better used to note political affiliation and therefore avoid any awkwardness in the dining room. But for a political hot spot, the Inn at Little Washington does its best to be distinctly neutral.
Word is that while First Lady Melania Trump wanted to dine here, her husband didnāt want to deviate from his usual diet of burgers and fries. A note from her office offering congratulations on the Innās 40th anniversary hangs by the bathroom. So does a picture and letter from Queen Elizabeth II, who never came to the Inn but was served Chef OāConnellās cuisine at the Virginia Governorās Mansion.
Itās intentionally dark in the dining room. Fringed lamps hang low over the dining tables entering the line of vision of the diner. Are they obscuring you from noticing who might be sitting in the corner? Probably not. But the darkness and shade convey the idea that someone important, someone with a black SUV out front, someone with a body man with a small discreet earpiece, is sitting just behind you.
But the solemnity of Important People Chewing does not diminish the festiveness of the place. The menu items have cheeky names (āA tin of sinā is how the caviar with peekytoe crab and cucumber rillette is described); the Innās resident cheese expertāthe MaĆ®tre du Fromageāpushes a trolley that in France might be an elegant yet utilitarian cheese cart. Here is a cart shaped like a cow that audibly moos. The MaĆ®tre du Fromage makes sure you know his cheeses are āudderly delicious.ā
Three or four courses at The Little Inn will set you back $350ā400, before beverages (though prices are not listed online. . . I mean, if you have to ask. . .) A man at a table near me proclaims the fourth course, the Chartreuse of Savor Cabbage and Maine Lobster with Caviar Beurre Blanc, the best thing heās ever eaten. āBest eversā and ābest in my lifeā are not uncommon here. Here is a place to plan your last meal. Your best meal. The one youāll dream about at home, talk about at your office, brag about to a friend.
What will you eat when you drive back home to Pittsburg or fly home to Florida? Or in my case, to (big) Washington. Because as Chef OāConnell points out, even in the nationās capital, which has come a long way from its meat and potatoes roots, there are still over 50 steakhouses. Fifty steakhouses for the population of roughly 700,000, and not one MaĆ®tre du Fromage in sight.
Hero photo of Patrick OāConnell courtesy of The Inn at Little Washington