This summer I was fortunate enough to spend a day with my girlfriend and four friends at The Inn at Little Washington cooking with Chef Patrick O’Connell followed by an amazing meal. It was a truly incredible experience worthy of a trip report!
Food & Friends
I won this adventure at The Inn through Food & Friends, my favorite DC charity, and any trip report would be incomplete without a proper plug of their awesome organization.
Food & Friends provides specialized, nutritious meals to people in the DC area living with HIV/AIDS, cancer, and other life-challenging illnesses. In 2010 alone, Food & Friends served more than 975,000 meals to DC residents in need.
Many of the most popular chefs from the DC area are supporters of Food & Friends including Patrick O’Connell (The Inn), Jamie Leed’s (Hank’s Oyster Bar), and Eric Ziebold (CityZen). Their events are always a ton of fun and of course stocked with delicious food. This Inn package was part of the charity auction at Chef’s Best, Food & Friend’s flagship event that raises almost $1,000,000 annually.
I’ve spent time volunteering in the Food & Friends kitchen, have attended many of their famous DC events, and I couldn’t think of a better-ran charitable organization. Ok, I’ll stop there — but seriously, they are a great, worthy group.
The Inn at Little Washington
The Inn at Little Washington is a world-famous inn and restaurant located in Washington, VA about two hours southwest from Washington, DC.
The Inn’s restaurant serves up a tasting menu of Contemporary American food each night and has won pretty much every restaurant award in existence. Their accommodations are awesome as well; my girlfriend and I stayed there for her birthday a year or two ago and had an amazing time.
Patrick O’Connell
Patrick O’Connell is the Inn’s quirky, awesome chef. He is famous for delicious food and oddball stunts like serving oyster-and-caviar communion dressed as the Pope at Chef’s Best.
I have no idea how he stays in reasonable shape with all of the amazing food he is around day-in and day-out.
Our Day at the Inn
The six of us (three couples) took a Wednesday off of work and hopped in a party bus for the two hour drive down to Washington, Virginia.
After warming up with a cocktail in the garden, Chef O’Connell took us back into the kitchen where we cooked the evening’s menu dish by dish. The kitchen at the Inn is really an amazing sight; it’s full of artwork, plays hymnal music constantly, and everyone is always wearing a smile.
Chef O’Connell’s insistence on using the best possible ingredients no matter what (they have employees at fish auctions in Hawaii for example) reminded me a bit of Steve Jobs’ insistence on perfection in design. It sure made for some great courses too. I know we’ve got the courses and recipes we made somewhere around our apartment, I’ll see what I can do to get them up here soon.
Dinner
Once we prepared each dish, we settled in at the Chef’s Table where Chef O’Connell and his staff served us the night’s tasting menu. Memorable courses include the fois gras duo and the “pepper crusted tuna pretending to be a filet mignon:
We wrapped up our meal with the Inn’s famous cheese course. They are really nuts about cheese (thankfully we were too).
While the Inn is a very fancy, classy place, they keep the mood light and fun with little touches like Faira the cheese cow. Each diner’s cheese selection comes out on this hilarious cow constantly being rolled through the restaurant that moo’s and rings a bell.
Finally, we capped off the night with an improvised scotch tasting we created on the spot.
Going to the Inn
If you’re ever in the DC area, definitely make a special trip to the Inn (you’ll need reservations pretty far in advance). I would highly, highly recommend sitting at one of the two Chef’s Tables in the kitchen. You can find them online at:
The Inn at Little Washington
Facebook: The Inn at Little Washington
Reservations
or give them a call at (540) 675-3800.
Have fun and enjoy the meal!
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