America's political elite have been escaping to this restaurant outside DC for nearly 50 years. The chef says 'you can't hate anybody here.'
29.01.2025 - 11:11
/ insider.com
Michelin-starred chef Patrick O'Connell believes there's a specific geographic spot where every human being belongs. If they find that spot, everything in their life will fall into place.
There's no denying it's true for O'Connell, who turned an abandoned gas station into the Inn at Little Washington, a five-star hotel in the tiny town of Washington, Virginia.
O'Connell, 79, still leads the kitchen of the hotel's three-star Michelin restaurant every night, just as he has since 1978.
Over the past 46 years, the Inn at Little Washington has become both a destination and a reprieve for the political elite — including the Reagan, Kennedy, and Bush families — who believe their destined spot is located about 70 miles east in Washington, DC.
"They need to get away, and they want to go to a place where people aren't jumping up to either congratulate them or insult them," O'Connell told Business Insider during a sit-down interview at his restaurant. "There's a certain invisibility here; they can walk around town."
Presidents, Supreme Court justices, secretaries of state, senators — they've all enjoyed the Inn at Little Washington's $388 prix-fixe menu, no matter their side of the political aisle.
O'Connell immediately felt at home in Washington, which provided a secluded sanctuary in America in the 1970s.
"It was the Vietnam War," O'Connell recalled. "When your friends are getting killed at a very young age for something they don't even understand in somebody else's country, it created incredible distrust of what people call the establishment and our political structure."
O'Connell said many people in his generation started "quietly dropping out" of society, choosing not to participate by slipping away "to more remote areas."
"It wasn't thought to be a movement," he continued. "Everybody was so into genuine peace and love, and so the only thing that was true was sort of escaping it all."
O'Connell spent afternoons in the local library, poring over old cookbooks nobody else checked out.
"I would sit and read for two or three hours, soak up the warmth and the sunshine, and then go home and cook all night," he recalled.
Word of mouth of the self-taught chef's talent spread quickly through the community, leading O'Connell to start a catering company. Then came the restaurant, which landed on the cover of The Washington Post's weekend magazine within months of opening.
O'Connell's retreat has become a world-class resort, but he said it hasn't changed the town — or how they treat their A-list clientele.
"This part of the world is very at ease with celebrities," he said. "Some locals might never have been to Washington, DC, and they don't know who the celebrities are, which is refreshing."
"Diane Sawyer used to come,