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The
Inn at Little Washington, celebrating its 25th anniversary
this year, has grown from an off-the-beaten-path find to one
of the most highly regarded restaurants in the world. Run
by O'Connell and his partner, Reinhardt Lynch, the inn has
won an astounding number of awards and honors, including being
the first establishment ever to win two Mobil Travel Guide
5-star awards---one for the restaurant and one for its accommodations---and
being selected as one of the top ten restaurants in the world
by International Herald Tribune writer Patricia Wells. The
James Beard Foundation named the Inn Restaurant of the Year
in 1993, and O'Connell was named Chef of the Year in 2001.
The Inn is also one of only a handful of establishments in
the U.S. to be selected for membership in the prestigious
Relais & Châteaux organization. Despite this success,
Chef O'Connell remains truly committed to his clientele and
is happy to share the insights he's gained over the course
of his fascinating career.
You're
known particularly for being a self-taught chef. What were
the important influences on you as a young cook?
Certainly reading cookbooks, particularly Julia Childs', because
at the time they were the most comprehensive and valuable.
Beyond just giving a recipe, she presented a whole background
to a dish, imparted its history, and communicated a lot about
French culture. It was the first time I had come across recipes
that made it easy to end up with terrific results. They became
springboards to modify and add personal touches and different
ingredients to. When I moved to the country I was in my 20s,
and we had no heat in the house. The local library had central
heat so I spent most of the afternoon reading cookbooks there.
They had a lot of old, strange cookbooks, and that was kind
of fun. I would bring three or four home, however many they'd
let me take out, and I'd fire up the wood stove and cook into
the night. I had worked in restaurants since age 15, but in
those days it wasn't something people took too seriously.
It wasn't considered a real career or profession, it was something
you did if you couldn't find a job---no one said anything
encouraging about working in a restaurant. It was only after
I had spent a year traveling around Europe that I returned
with a whole different feeling about what becoming a chef
could be.
You're a great proponent of travel. How did it in change
your outlook and affect your cooking?
In France in particular I observed the prestige attached to
the chef's profession. That prestige didn't exist in America
at the time. And traveling and eating certainly helped me
establish reference points, which I think is absolutely vital.
Once we had actually opened the restaurant, we began every
year traveling in Europe. We'd make a list of the best restaurants---usually
Michelin three-star places in the French countryside, which
most resembled what we hoped to do at the Inn. We would go
from one to the other in a very concentrated, educational
tour. It gave us a benchmark for what we hoped to create.
At first it was a little intimidating. We'd roll up to these
wildly expensive places in a ratty little rented car. But
we found that the owners were extremely welcoming and helpful
in every possible way once they found out we were in the business
and wanting to learn. Many would invite us into the kitchen
and show us around or take us to the market. I always tell
young people that even if they are going to run a little sandwich
place, they need to find out not only what the best sandwich
in their town is, but what is the best sandwich in the world,
and use that as a reference point.
In 1972, you and your partner Reinhardt Lynch opened a
catering business with a wood-burning stove and a $1.49 electric
frying pan. How did your business evolve from there?
Like wildfire. This area didn't even have a grocery store
at the time, and the nearest restaurant was about 40 miles
away and it was pretty awful. There were many wealthy people
who had big farms and estates in the area and liked to entertain
a lot. We were like a fantasy for them, and very affordable---we
would often cater a dinner for $5 or $6 a person. Word of
mouth spread to three or four counties away and pretty soon
people were asking us to go back into Washington, DC, where
they might have another residence, and cater parties. We had
reached the fork in the road where we either had to open a
restaurant or approach the catering business as a real business
and stop doing it with an electric fry pan and a wood stove.
So we opted to rent half of a garage in a nearby town for
$200 a month, and that was the beginning of The Inn at Little
Washington. But from the moment we made that decision to open
a restaurant, it took six years to actually open the door.
During that period we were able to work in some other country
establishments outside and around the metropolitan Washington,
DC, area. Today we have 14 rooms at the Inn, and we serve
dinner every night, although we do close on Tuesdays for about
half the year.
The population of Washington, Virginia, is about 183; what's
it like to run such a high-profile business in such a small
town?
It's bizarre, especially since we now employ about 108 people.
On a busy evening we might have 200 dinner guests. So it has
certainly altered a lot of aspects of the region. The town
was just about bankrupt prior to our opening, and shortly
after we opened the town instituted a food and lodging tax,
and now it's quite flush. In many ways it has been very good
for the town, very good for real estate values.
For us, living in the country is a wonderful antidote to the
high-pressured, stressed environment of a restaurant like
ours. On a good day it's the best of both worlds, because
it's like working in a high-speed New York restaurant, but
then you step outside at 9 o'clock at night and everybody's
in bed, and it looks like you may have just dreamed all the
excitement.
I've read that your waiters spend a year in training "before
they're allowed to speak to a customer." Is this true?
And what is your philosophy of service?
Well, that's before they can enter into dialog with customers.
They can direct a guest to the restroom or tell them the time,
but they're mainly working in a back-waiter capacity. We forbid
them from discussing the menu or wine list until they are
totally comfortable. This came about many years ago when a
junior waiter was taking an order and noticed that a tape-recorder
was running under the guest's napkin. The critics had begun
a style of writing where they would quote servers and try
to make them look foolish. Our waiters don't want to be backed
into a corner where they have to make something up or be inaccurate,
and they fully understand how savvy and knowledgeable our
guests are and how much there is to learn. They usually thank
us profusely after they've been through this training. We
have a two-hour verbal quiz administered when they let us
know that they're ready. The entire staff participates in
the exam, and it's fair game to ask any question that you
yourself have been asked. Waiters have a great sense of accomplishment
when they pass their exam.
It's key to impart to the staff the potential of the dining
experience. We're not feeding people, we're not selling food;
we're providing a peak life experience that someone will never
forget. I use analogies from theater and film and art---it's
a very visual kind of approach. Any one person on the staff,
and there are 108 working now, can destroy the experience
in a second if they're unconscious of their own importance.
Where do you find inspiration for a menu that changes daily?
Well, certainly from the products that present themselves
locally, and vendors always call us when they have something
unusual or interesting. In the spring and summer people just
bring stuff to the back door, and the produce itself is inspirational.
The seasons here are very distinct, so that's four very distinct
reasons to change our menu, and the critics are a reason as
well. One of our staff said he felt that 10% of our guests
were either professional restaurant people or critics or journalists,
so their expectations are quite lofty. Oftentimes they're
coming four or five times a year, so you sort of rack your
brain to figure out what they've eaten previously and how
you can please them again. Sometimes new dishes occur spontaneously,
but usually it's weeks, months, sometimes years developing
a new dish. Every Friday we have a menu development seminar;
each member of the kitchen staff presents an idea and it's
critiqued. So the whole kitchen staff is involved in menu
development.
The Inn is almost as famous for its beautifully outfitted
kitchen as for the décor of the dining room and guest
rooms. How did it evolve?
Four years ago, we decided it was time to do something with
the kitchen space. We realized that we couldn't rely on a
contractor to give us a specific timeframe for closing the
restaurant, so we added a new wing onto the existing building
instead. This turned out to be a much better solution, because
it gave us additional space where the previous kitchen had
been, and that turned into a beautiful living room. We were
also able to build two guest suites on top of the new wing.
We got the idea that the kitchen should be equal in elegance
to the guest space in the rest of the house, and it should
be a place where guests are welcome. The idea was to have
no area of the restaurant that was off limits to guests---there
should be no dark corners and places you don't want guests
to see. This forces the staff to maintain all of these spaces
at the same level that they do the dining room. The kitchen
staff has to maintain an immaculate work environment at all
times. The bonus for them is that they get to work in a magnificent
place with gorgeous natural light and a big roaring fire in
the fireplace, beautiful music playing and candles all over
the place. The room was actually inspired by the Dairy Room
at Windsor Castle, where the cheese used to be made.
Your The Inn at Little Washington Cookbook: A Consuming
Passion is in its fifth printing, a testament to its ability
to reach a range of readers. How did you approach presenting
recipes to home cooks?
I had the distinct advantage of having learned to cook by
reading recipes. I can tell at a glance if a recipe's intelligently
written. My background in college was speech, drama and English,
so that's helped a lot in my work. I've always enjoyed simplifying
recipes so anyone can do them. Chefs' cookbooks today have
a reputation for recipes that are either impossible to execute,
or recipes that turn out a finished product that doesn't resemble
what's served in the restaurant. So that was the challenge,
to make my book approachable and to achieve a finished product
that's identical to what they would get if they dined at The
Inn at Little Washington. Every day the mail is still filled
with little notes and letters from people saying how beautifully
everything they're making in the book comes out, and that's
really heartwarming. I have a second book as well that's about
half completed right now. AOL/Time Warner is publishing it,
and it will probably be about a year before it hits the stands.
What are your favorite parts of being a chef?
I think it is the atmosphere, the camaraderie, and the people---both
the staff and the guests. And in this business there's not
a day that goes by that you're not presented with some new
idea. Our staff now comes from 17 different countries, and
it may just be that the young lady from Kenya will prepare
the staff meal, and you'll have something you never tasted
before. And that kind of interchange among the cooks is a
real battery charger. We also have a very well-traveled and
knowledgeable clientele, and a lot of famous clients, and
it's always a surprise to see who's coming to dinner. They
come from all over the world, and we get to stay right here
in our own space and have all of this mental stimulation come
to us. Also, in this industry, you get a fresh start every
day; whatever happened yesterday is all erased, and you get
to begin all over again.
What advice do you have for our professional students,
young men and women just starting out on their careers?
Learn how to taste. Learn what a wonderful peach is supposed
to taste like, learn what a really excellent tomato is supposed
to taste like. I think some young chefs fall victim to the
idea that they must demonstrate their wild and zany creativity
before they learn to cook. I recommend both to the culinary
professionals and home cooks that they need to take time to
establish a sense of mastery. If it's making a salad, make
it over and over and over, and learn everything possible about
what makes a fabulous salad, and really become a salad master.
Focus on one concept or aspect of cooking and really excel
at it, and that will transfer to other areas. Reading restaurant
reviews is also essential for professionals. It amazes me
how many young students fail to do this. It's crucial to not
only read the reviews of your critics locally, but read every
restaurant reviewer you can find. The good ones are educators,
and in telling you what's wrong with a dish they're also telling
you how it should be, and they'll impart a great deal of background
about a dish as they critique it.
The Inn at Little Washington
Middle and Main Streets
Washington, VA 22747
(540) 675-3800
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