A nun, a chef, and two half-nude men with cheese-grater abs walk into a lounge. It’s not the setup to a joke, but rather a scene from last night’s Food & Friends benefit at Rogue 24, where chef Patrick O’Connell of the Inn at Little Washington teamed up with resident toque R.J. Cooper for a 24-course extravaganza.
Forget your staid rubbery-chicken Washington fundraiser. Guests paid upward of $1,000 per person for tickets, which wholly benefited the charity, and were rewarded with a meal that lasted into the wee hours and plenty of show. “Adam and Steve,” the aforementioned male models outfitted in (very short) leaf-covered shorts, greeted guests at the door while a woman dressed as a Catholic nun poured wine. Dishes were similarly surreal—think Bloody Mary-flavored gumdrops, Catalina sea urchin with yeast-sea air, and chicken oysters—two succulent ovals of dark meat on the bird’s back—masquerading as bivalves under a blanket of leek cream. Presiding over it all was an ebullient O’Connell, decked out in platform boots and faux-tattoo sleeves, and a slightly less ecstatic Cooper, wrapped in the Inn at Little Washington’s signature dalmatian apron.
Click through the slideshow to witness the insanity.
Anna Spiegel covers the dining and drinking scene in her native DC. Prior to joining Washingtonian in 2010, she attended the French Culinary Institute and Columbia University’s MFA program in New York, and held various cooking and writing positions in NYC and in St. John, US Virgin Islands.
