Style All Around - The Inn at Little Washington
It's Thursday, time for our Style Source Faves segment. But it's also just two weeks until Christmas, and I've got food on the brain.
"What?" you ask. "What does food have to do with style?" Hm, well, here's my tie-in: what's a great looking, beautifully decorated holiday table without fabulous food? I know there's a camp out there that holds to the notion: if the ambience is great it doesn't matter how the food tastes. (Honest - a restauranteur actually said that to me years ago.) But I don't agree. After all, think of all the hole in the wall eateries that are JAMMED, because they have incredible food.
So, no matter how gorgeous your dining room and table decor are, you still must have great food.
Which leads to today's pick - a cookbook, actually two, from the chef/owner of a very well known Mid Atlantic restaurant - The Inn at Little Washington. Located about an hour and a half from the DC area, this restaurant/inn has been a favorite of foodies and glitterati for years. And Chef Patrick O'Connell has written two acclaimed cookbooks with recipes that are definitely holiday worthy.
Here I'm going to be a bit lazy and just reprint some quotes off the Inn's website, because the quotes are too good not to pass on:
Craig Claiborne of The New York Times called it “the most magnificent inn I’ve ever seen, in this country or Europe, where I had the most fantastic meal of my life”. Patrick’s approach to cooking, while paying homage to the lawmakers of Classical French Cuisine, reflects a belief in “the cuisine of today”, healthy, eclectic, imaginative, unrestricted by ethnic boundaries and always growing. The restaurant has been continually rated number one in all categories of Zagat’s Washington DC restaurant survey for the past 14 years. The popular reader’s survey raves that it is: “the gastronomic equivalent of sex”, “heaven comes in second place and it’s not really close” and calls The Inn at Little Washington “arguably the best dining in the country”.
WOW - doesn't get much better than that! And having eaten there myself (and stayed in the Inn which is so magically charming you feel like you're in a movie) I can personally attest to the fact that the food is exquisite.
So here are the cookbooks. Both can be purchased from the Inn's website.
"What?" you ask. "What does food have to do with style?" Hm, well, here's my tie-in: what's a great looking, beautifully decorated holiday table without fabulous food? I know there's a camp out there that holds to the notion: if the ambience is great it doesn't matter how the food tastes. (Honest - a restauranteur actually said that to me years ago.) But I don't agree. After all, think of all the hole in the wall eateries that are JAMMED, because they have incredible food.
So, no matter how gorgeous your dining room and table decor are, you still must have great food.
Which leads to today's pick - a cookbook, actually two, from the chef/owner of a very well known Mid Atlantic restaurant - The Inn at Little Washington. Located about an hour and a half from the DC area, this restaurant/inn has been a favorite of foodies and glitterati for years. And Chef Patrick O'Connell has written two acclaimed cookbooks with recipes that are definitely holiday worthy.
Here I'm going to be a bit lazy and just reprint some quotes off the Inn's website, because the quotes are too good not to pass on:
Craig Claiborne of The New York Times called it “the most magnificent inn I’ve ever seen, in this country or Europe, where I had the most fantastic meal of my life”. Patrick’s approach to cooking, while paying homage to the lawmakers of Classical French Cuisine, reflects a belief in “the cuisine of today”, healthy, eclectic, imaginative, unrestricted by ethnic boundaries and always growing. The restaurant has been continually rated number one in all categories of Zagat’s Washington DC restaurant survey for the past 14 years. The popular reader’s survey raves that it is: “the gastronomic equivalent of sex”, “heaven comes in second place and it’s not really close” and calls The Inn at Little Washington “arguably the best dining in the country”.
WOW - doesn't get much better than that! And having eaten there myself (and stayed in the Inn which is so magically charming you feel like you're in a movie) I can personally attest to the fact that the food is exquisite.
So here are the cookbooks. Both can be purchased from the Inn's website.
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