I am not a patient man. In my world, immediate gratification takes too long. Yet it took me forty years to get to The Inn at Little Washington. Forty years of reading about it, contemplating its fabulousness and kicking myself for not taking the time to journey an hour west of Washington, D.C., to sample the cuisine of Patrick O'Connell (right).  To be accurate, with D.C. traffic being what it is, the drive can easily take two hours. Perhaps that has had something to do with it.

    Accolades have been never-ending over that time—Five Diamonds from the AAA; five stars from Mobil (now Forbes); two Michelin stars, more Wine Spectator awards than you can count; best restaurant in the Washington D.C. area seemingly forever; cooking for Queen Elizabeth—you know, the usual for a small country caterer who made good in a town of 158 people.

    Sometimes a whole decade would pass off my radar, then I'd pick up some food or travel magazine and there it would be, accepting medals and beckoning again—one man's very particular vision of luxury; a chef's fantasy come to life of what the ultimate in American fine dining could be.

    What O'Connell started in 1978 began rather modestly, at a time when Alice Waters and Jeremiah Tower were taking the West Coast by storm with their farm-to-table renaissance, and New York’s Le Cirque was defining the ne plus ultra of big city dining.  Operating out of a converted gas station O'Connell and his then partner, Reinhardt Lynch, decided to convert their catering business into a country inn. They were definite Francophiles in the Tower/Waters mold, but where Chez Panisse was a bunch of hippies cooking great food in a college town, theirs was a more proper sensibility. The linens were starched and the place settings were just so. Thus it remains to this day, and the attention to detail makes the place as different from Chez Panisse as Judy Dench is from Joan Baez. But that starchiness fades as soon as you approach the doorway. The formality of the premises may be set to impress, but the welcome is as warm and sweet as shoo fly pie.

    The design might be called Downton Abbey meets Colonial Williamsburg, with more than a touch of English flamboyance, which makes sense when you learn it was done by a British stage set designer. Chintz, portraiture and floral prints are everywhere, so much so that you'll want to break out your hunting jacket and jodhpurs.  

    Everyone is all smiles as you approach and every guest, even the regulars, seems to soak up and bask in the special-ness of the place. The decor may be over-the-top Anglophile but the cuisine is resolutely French, and what is so astonishing is how O'Connell—a chef with no formal training—has been able to evolve with the times and present a menu that is both classic and modern.

    Perfect, warm bread is served as soon as you order. The butter is the right temperature and just soft enough, barely resistant to your knife, an immediate indication that someone in the kitchen is paying attention to the smallest details. Amuse bouches are offered, and whatever shows up will take your breath away. Does a gougère get more spherical or precise? Can a cold artichoke soup be anymore intense? Oysters come with a quartet of frozen fruit "slushie" scoops -- each one a sweet and acidic counterpoint to the briny mollusk beside it.

     No matter what menu you order from—“Enduring Classics," "Gastronauts," or "The Good Earth”—you can be assured of four exquisite courses for a set price of $228 per person ($238 on Saturday) and $15 for wine pairings, but it’s really more like six to eight dishes once all the amuses and various edible doodads are thrown in. Besides those Wellfleet oysters, each as plump and briny as this shellfish can get, the Classics menu brings forth a carpaccio of herb-crusted Elysian Fields lamb loin—nine medallions of magenta-colored raw lamb upon which sit three scoops of "Caesar Salad Ice Cream" (below). The ice cream is flavored with garlic and Parmesan, and once you get past the surprise, you realize it is simply a cheese-infused aïoli in a frozen, emulsified guise. This is O'Connell playing with his food (and keeping up with the times), but he does so without affectation and with a firm sense of flavor.

    More classically rooted is the duet of bread-crusted rabbit loin with braised chestnuts, apples, and prunes, highlighted by the sort of dense, rich reduction sauce that makes you wish they served it by the spoonful. Following on the Classics menu was Pekin Duck Three Ways—pan-seared breast, sausage and confit—served on sparkling sauerkraut that would do an Alsatian proud.

    On the "Gastronauts" side, things lighten up a bit, featuring the season's first white asparagus poached in cream, and presented with a dollop of Royal Osetra caviar, followed by foie gras with port-soaked raisins atop a rich, savory Catalan custard, and then a simple rectangle of grilled marlin decorated with peeled grapes and a curried hollandaise.

     This is not cartwheels-in-the-kitchen cooking, but the rendition of each dish was as on point as French food can be. Of all the main dishes though, the one that got our attention was a simple parsley-topped, very rare lamb loin, served with a crêpinette of lamb merguez sausage (below), presented like a lollipop at the end of a rib bone. It was elegant yet simple, minimalist and precise and gave the slightest of nods to modernist cuisine without giving in to the absurdity of so much of it.

    A single meal, forty years into a restaurant's run, hardly gives one the depth of  knowledge needed to summarize a chef's cooking. But my evidence told me O'Connell takes great pride in his proteins and that he has almost perfect pitch when it comes to letting ingredients express themselves. As with all accomplished French chefs, it is the marriage of great food and wine that informs his dishes.

    And, as with the great, long-lived restaurants of France, a broad, carefully collected wine cellar is at your disposal. Choosing those wines will take some time though, since the 81-page list is a trove of name brand bottles and obscure offerings. High rollers will enjoy all the big hitter verticals of Burgundy, Bordeaux and Napa at the usual choke-a-horse prices, while mere mortals will have a field day matching this wine-friendly food with plenty of selections under $100. If you're willing to venture into the world of Rieslings and Italian whites, there are bargains aplenty.

    Markups for non-trophy reds run in the range of 100-200% over retail, which is modest by destination dining standards. Corkage is charged at $50 for your first bottle and $75 for the second, but they happily waive the charge if you purchase at least one bottle (at any price) from their list.

    Much is made of the cheese cart and the attendant puns like,” You won't Brie-lieve our selection." "Havarti had that one?" But the array is impressive and all cheeses are served at peak ripeness. The fact that they’re  presented on a rolling ceramic cow cart that even moos only adds to the cheesiness of the presentation. It all might be a bit much for the over-serious epicure, but I was rather fondue of it.

    Desserts are more soothing than surprising. There's no faulting the warm Granny Smith apple tart with buttermilk ice cream, or the lemon tartlet. The one curiosity, “Apparently A Pear," disguises a bracing blackberry sorbet beneath a golden meringue crust, the whole ornament bathed with a warm, melting sabayon that dissolves the crunchy exterior and any remaining resistance you have to the old-fashioned charms of the place.

    Along with great food and wine, it is that charm and comfort that The Inn at Little Washington has been selling since January 28, 1978. There is a soothing quality to a meal here that very few, if any, restaurants in America try to duplicate. You are cosseted from the moment you approach the front door until you bid adieu three hours later. In this era of bare tables, pin lights, interminable tasting menus, Instagrammable dishes and media-strutting chefs, it is a throwback in all the best ways. And it seems the qualities it brings to the table are now captivating a third generation of diners.

    On the weeknight we ate there, Gen-Xers and Millennials outnumbered the aging Baby Boomers in the very full dining rooms.  Hospitality like this never goes out of style, and it won't be another forty years before this aging Boomer experiences it again.

The Inn at Little Washington's guest accommodations, is open every evening except Tuesdays.

    It is absurd for the food media to assert that all steakhouses have pretty much the same menu and therefore do not deserve attention.  Fact is, the menus at the majority of restaurants of any stripe have more or less the same menus. There will always be burrata and tomatoes on the Italian, onion soup gratinée on the French, pad thai noodles on the Thai, chicken quesadillas on the Mexican, and lamb vindaloo on the Indian.  The only real question is: who makes those standards best and what variations and specials might there be?

    Bobby Van’s seems to be doing what it does with an unwavering consistency that has kept its business thriving for 49 years. It all began when a fellow named Bobby Van opened a restaurant in Bridgehampton on Long Island. Two decades later Van sold that restaurant to Rick Passarelli, who opened a second Bobby Van’s Steakhouse, tucked into a corner of Park Avenue and 46th Street, just north of Grand Central Terminal. In 1996 restaurateur and chef Robert Dickert, a great-nephew of Peter Luger, joined Bobby Van’s team and helped expand from the Park Avenue “original” to five steakhouses in Manhattan, one at JFK airport and two in Washington, DC.

    Under Executive Chef Craig Jermin, the USDA Prime beef is aged in a specially designed, humidity-controlled room for up to 28 days. For seafood Bobby Van’s has a fleet of 30 fishing boats providing the freshest fish and shellfish daily.

    All that history gives Bobby Van’s enormous purchasing clout, and it shows in the quality of the ingredients and in the way they are cooked.  For no good reason, I had never actually eaten at “the original,” though I’ve enjoyed others in the chain, so I made up for that lapse recently and enjoyed myself from the moment I was greeted to the last mouthful of cheesecake.

    The various locations share a certain décor, and though oddly configured as a room, the Park Avenue restaurant is very handsome via an expansive use of mahogany wood, polished floors, very sturdy, comfortable wooden chairs, warm lighting, tablecloths you don’t even notice because you expect them in a good steakhouse, and, even when full, a space in which you can easily have a conversation.  No music blares in the background. A bottle of pretty good house steak sauce is on every table.

    A word about the service staff: As in many other New York steakhouses, there’s a good possibility that the waiters will have come from eastern Europe, particularly the former Yugoslavian republics.  Overall, I’ve found that those at the Bobby Van’s restaurants  have a jaunty demeanor, happy to speak with you about any subject under the sun. Ours, long ago from Montenegro, was named Sam Pejcinovic, and I wish he could be cloned at every branch. Affable, jovial and very knowledgeable, he took every request seriously and had the pacing of the meal down to a science. If he asks if everything is to your liking, he does it in a tone that suggests he’ll fix any little thing that’s wrong in a New York minute.

    You begin with four different types of good bread and a large ramekin of spreadable butter. Cocktails are made as requested.

    The massive two-inch thick sirloin ($63) I ordered “black and blue” did indeed come rare and cool inside and had plenty of aged beef flavor. A double veal chop ($52) was of superb tenderness and had rich taste, well seared on the outside and bone. Other cuts include filet mignon ($48 and $58) and the porterhouse for two or more goes for  $59.50 per person. I should note that these prices are higher than at most of BV's competitors.

    If a sushi restaurant should be defined by its impeccable seafood, so, too, should a steakhouse serving oysters, crab, clams, lobsters and fish. In that regard, a crabcake is always a good measure of a steakhouse’s commitment. Bobby Van’s is a good-sized patty with minimal filler,  just enough mayonnaise to bind it, and plenty of sweet crabmeat, though it would have been even better, especially at $24, had it been jumbo lump meat.  Lemon pepper shrimp ($24.50) were, on the other hand, pretty big creatures with plenty of meatiness.

    There was no arguing about the quality and preparation of the thee-pound lobster (MP), however. It was steamed to perfection—I can’t remember a better  lobster anywhere in New York—its shell cracked by Sam, the meat then removed from the shell at the table, assuring it would not get cold on the platter. The amount of that meat in the tail and claws was impressive, and the amount of melted clarified butter was enough to drown a gallon of mashed potatoes. There was a good briny flavor to the crustacean, and its texture was not chewy in the least.

    I’ve long been a sucker for a classic American wedge salad, and Bobby Van’s is nonpareil ($17.50)—the lettuce very crisp, the bacon, blue cheese and dressing tangy and salty, with a crusty lagniappe of fried onions on top, all of it presented in a portion that two or three diners could share. Just as good was a side of creamed spinach in which the vegetable was not overwhelmed by the cream or seasoning.  Sam recommended the hash browns over other options and he was right. Very buttery and clearly prepared not long in advance, they were the perfect accompaniment to the meat and lobster.

    Despite the satisfaction of such a meal thus far, desserts like New York cheesecake, chocolate cake and a tall tiramisù hit the spot.

   Bobby Van’s wine list has enough trophies among its mainly French and Italian bottlings, and prices are as steakhouse high as everywhere else.

    I was, therefore, happy to get to “the original” Bobby Van’s, not only to add it to my files but to remind me that, as at the other branches, I could be blindfolded and served the same meal and enjoy it  every bit as much.  Of course, I might miss Sam Pejcinovic to kibitz with, but there’s probably others him like him throughout the Bobby Van’s empire. 

Open Mon.-Fri. for lunch and dinner, Sat. for dinner. Closed Sunday.