Patrick O’Connell
Culinary Mentor
Patrick O’Connell is a self-taught chef who pioneered a regional American cuisine in a rural Virginia village. His alliance with local farmers was born of necessity more than 40 years ago when nothing but milk was delivered to the town. In 1978, he opened The Inn at Little Washington in a former garage, now regarded as an international culinary shrine. Chef O’Connell is referred to as “the Pope of American cuisine.”
Patricia Wells of The International Herald Tribune named The Inn one of the top ten restaurants in the world, hailing O’Connell as “a rare chef with a sense of near perfect taste, like a musician with perfect pitch.”
O’Connell was asked to cook for Queen Elizabeth on her visit to Virginia in 2007. He has appeared on Good Morning America, The Today Show, the CBS Early Show, the Martha Stewart Show, Top Chef, the Diane Rehm Show, and the Charlie Rose Show, and is a frequent guest speaker at The Smithsonian and the Culinary Institute of America.
