Patrick O’Connell of the Inn at Little Washington is celebrating his 80th birthday this week. But the chef isn’t planning on slowing down anytime soon.
The Virginia inn’s owner and chef is celebrating his 80th birthday this week. But big birthday aside, he’s not slowing down.
“In fact, I’m speeding up — seriously,” O’Connell said. “The idea is that we have such a strong team now, we have so much talent here, and we’ve acquired a certain gravitas as a hotel and the only three star restaurant south of New York, really, that we can do things we couldn’t do 20, even 15 years ago. So why not do them?”
Those projects involve a major expansion at the inn, including a spa with a new entrance for overnight guests.
“A new complex, and this is 10 additional rooms with an underground wine cellar, and the rear is gardens, and across the street is the spa,” O’Connell said as he showed WTOP reporter Brennan Haselton video overviewing the plans.
The inn has also made some recent upgrades O’Connell touted, including a two-bedroom suite in what used to be an old summer kitchen.
“It looks as if it’s always been there, which is the object in all of these projects,” O’Connell said. “People are loving it.”
The inn has also opened up an 11-acre industrial garden at the edge of town, growing about 15,000 pounds of produce in a season, O’Connell said.
Right as he reaches the personal milestone of turning 80, O’Connell is reflecting on his journey and writing a memoir, which will come out next year.
One pivotal moment in his life was landing his first job in a restaurant; at 15 years old, he worked at Mr. H’s Hamburgers in Clinton, Maryland.
“It was an era before McDonald’s, when neighborhood restaurants actually made everything — the coleslaw, the piccalilli, the tartar sauce — and you really learned how to cook,” O’Connell told WTOP.
That job set in motion a career in kitchens.
“They were hard core restaurant lifers in those places,” O’Connell said of Mr. H’s. “As soon as I walked in, I felt this is where I belonged. Parents were not happy, but those people were wonderful people, and that’s what crystallized my notion that I love restaurant people.”
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