The Inn at Little Washington

The Inn at Little Washington is, in practical terms, Patrick O'Connell's three-Michelin-star restaurant with twenty-four rooms attached. It opened in 1978 as a restaurant in a converted gas station in a Virginia village of about 130 people, and over the next four decades worked its way to the top rating in the Michelin Guide — one of only a handful of American restaurants ever to hold three stars. The rooms came later, almost as a logistical answer to the question of where the dinner guests were going to sleep.

Calling this an inn understates what it is. It's a destination restaurant that happens to also be a hotel, in a town where the entire economy more or less orbits the front door. People plan trips around the dining room a year out.

The setting

Washington, Virginia — known locally as "Little Washington" to distinguish it from the bigger one — sits in Rappahannock County in the foothills of the Blue Ridge, about an hour and twenty minutes west of D.C. via I-66 and Route 211. The town is five blocks long. Population sits around 130. It was laid out in 1749 and surveyed by a young George Washington, which is the entire reason it has the name.

Shenandoah National Park's Skyline Drive is fifteen minutes west — Old Rag, one of the most demanding day hikes in the eastern U.S., is twenty. The surrounding county is winery and horse country, with several serious vineyards within a half-hour drive.

The building

The original 1895 building — once the village's gas station and general store — has expanded over the decades into a connected complex of buildings around a central garden, all in the same white-clapboard, green-shutter, hand-painted-trompe-l'oeil vocabulary. Interiors lean theatrical: brass and velvet, hand-painted murals, draped fabrics, and a level of decorative commitment that's either delightful or overwhelming depending on the guest. The public rooms read as stage sets, intentionally.

The restaurant kitchen is open to the dining room through a window framed in copper.

The rooms

Twenty-four rooms across the main inn and a cluster of cottages in the village — guesthouses, the Mayor's House, the Parsonage. Each is decorated individually and exuberantly; uniformity is not the goal. Beds are canopy or four-poster, fabrics are layered, fireplaces are common. From-rates start around $895 and run substantially higher for the larger suites and standalone cottages.

Most categories are designed for two; family configurations are limited.

Food & drink

The dining room holds three Michelin stars and a Michelin Key. The tasting menu is the one program; à la carte exists but most guests do the full menu, which runs nine to twelve courses depending on the night. Reservations are notoriously difficult; the inn typically requires a one-night room booking to confirm dinner on busy weekends. There's a separate bar and a more casual breakfast program for guests.

Non-guests can book dinner directly, though availability is the limiting factor.

On the property

A small-village inn, so the on-property amenity stack is modest. The restaurant is the amenity.

• Three-Michelin-star dining room
• Cocktail bar
• Garden and patio
• Open most of the year, with periodic closures for staff time

Who it's for

• Serious restaurant travelers — the people who plan trips around tables
• Couples doing a milestone anniversary
• Anyone within driving distance of D.C. who hasn't yet been
• Wine-and-tasting-menu people who don't flinch at the rate

Who it's not for

• Travelers looking for a quiet country B&B without the restaurant ceremony
• Families with young children
• Anyone who finds the heavily decorated aesthetic visually noisy — it is, by design

Nearby

Shenandoah National Park's Skyline Drive starts fifteen minutes west, with overlooks every few miles and Old Rag's trailhead a short drive south. Sperryville, the next village over, has a cluster of antique shops and the Hopkins Ordinary tasting room. Rappahannock County is dense with wineries — Linden, Glen Manor, RdV Vineyards (the most decorated of them) all within forty minutes. Front Royal, at the northern end of Skyline Drive, is half an hour. For a non-Inn dinner — if you can imagine it — Three Blacksmiths in Sperryville does serious tasting menus on a smaller stage.