Meet the gay chef who built a world-renowned restaurant in a tiny Virginia town
By Alan Diamond · Published on The Advocate
This story originally appeared on Out. Patrick O’Connell has spent nearly five decades turning a tiny Virginia town named Washington into the kind of place food lovers and travelers plan an entire trip around. In 1978, the self-taught chef opened The Inn at Little Washington in a former garage. Today, the Michelin-starred restaurant and Relais & Châteaux hotel is an internationally renowned destination, shaped as much by O’Connell’s highly personal vision of hospitality as by what arrives on th