Patrick O'Connell's Refined American Cuisine: The Inn at Little Washington »

Award-winning chef and owner of the Inn at Little Washington, Patrick O'Connell is also the author of the best-selling cookbook The Inn at Little Washington: A Consuming Passion. He is the winner of the James Beard Award for Outstanding Chef for 2001.

Patrick O'Connell, owner and chef of the award-winning Inn at Little Washington, defines a new way of American cooking - homegrown in the United States, approachable for the home cook, yet as delicious and refined as the finest French and Italian cuisine.

Patrick O'Connell is a self-taught chef who has pioneered a regional American cuisine in the Virginia countryside by using fresh local ingredients. He has been referred to as the pope of American haute cuisine and is president of the North American Relais Gourmands. Selecting the Inn at Little Washington as one of the top ten restaurants in the world, Patricia Wells hails O'Connell as a rare chef with a sense of near-perfect taste, like a musician with perfect pitch.

O'Connell offers vastly refined versions of his favorite American food: Macaroni and Cheese with Virginia Country Ham, Crab Cake 'Sandwich' with Fried Green Tomatoes, Veal Medallions with Country Ham Ravioli, and Warm Plum Torte with Sweet Corn Ice Cream. All the recipes use fresh American ingredients to make delicious dishes that rival the finest foods from France and Italy.

The New York Times - Korby Cummer

Although he's one of the most celebrated professional chefs in the country, O'Connell taught himself to cook by reading the best books of the late 1960's and 70's, and at heart his food is gussied-up home cooking. Today's apprentice hosts and hostesses can impress their guests with his recipes for camembert triangles in phyllo dough and veal medallions with country ham ravioli. Maybe O'Connell's ability to tell a good story -- another key to successful entertaining -- will inspire them too.