Only the top 40 restaurants were ranked in 2011's Best Restaurants list.
A retreat in a quaint town far from the big city. A 6,000-bottle wine cellar. A chef full of imagination and skill.
Cribbing liberally from the Inn at Little Washington’s playbook, owners Stefan and Victoria Trummer have staked a bold claim in a charmingly renovated inn. Comparisons to the more famous inn are premature, but this is one of the area’s most intriguing ventures.
Chef Clayton Miller’s Modern American menu is as creative as any: Sublime beef tartare is topped with a ketchup sorbet, a presentation of local lamb features three cooking styles, including sous-vide, and “crumbles”—various ingredients ground to an almost-powder—appear on no fewer than three dishes. Miller can overreach, and his best plates are often his simplest, such as an exquisitely rendered risotto with black trumpet mushrooms.
Few settings do more to enhance an experience than this one, the beautifully lit, high-ceilinged rooms giving way to picture-postcard views of Main Street.
Also good: Borscht with crème fraîche and salmon tartare; toasted ciabatta with mussels and curry mayo; roasted red snapper; tasting of two vanilla ice creams; molten chocolate cake with vanilla-and-black-sesame sherbet.
Open Tuesday through Saturday for dinner, Sunday for brunch and dinner. Expensive.
>> See all of 2011's Best Restaurants
Ann Limpert joined Washingtonian in late 2003. She was previously an editorial assistant at Entertainment Weekly and a cook in New York restaurant kitchens, and she is a graduate of the Institute of Culinary Education. She lives in Petworth.
