To provide a perspective of the review, we travel ...

To provide a perspective of the review, we travel a lot, stayed at a lot of top hotels and enjoy a wide range of food from street food to three star Michelin. We enjoyed the inn at little Washington overall but given the standard it s trying to hold itself up to, there s some room for improvements.

The room - we had the Alice Waters room. It is a bi-level suite meaning the bedroom is on a separate floor. The room was nice, spacious and comfortable. The decoration and furnishing was incredible. The cons: one light in the room comes on and off randomly most likely due to a defect bulb. It gets a bit freaky at night given the style of the hotel, so I just turned it off. There was no coffee machine in the room, or if there was I didn t find it. And I m not a big fan of the Bvlgari toiletries due to the heavy perfume. They may have other selections but I didn t ask.

The dinner - the main reason we were here and did not disappoint. Between me and my husband we ordered the two non vegetarian menus. We understand with renovations in cooking there s going to be hits and misses, and tonight there s mostly hits, with a few things I didn t care for. But food is so personal and for example, I didn t care for the ice team they put on the lamb carpaccio but my husband liked it. My favorite was the sea bass and quail. I didn t like the combination of foie gras and the tuna, and the wagyu could be better.

The service - overall warm and welcoming. They definitely try to hold themselves to a very high standard. But at times I get the feeling people here are so proud of this place and could come across in a wrong way. The night we arrived we asked for tea to be sent to our room straight away. It did not appear after and hour so my husband went to check on them and was told that they weren t preparing the tea for us and this was s a miscommunication. I didn t like the word miscommunication a bit as it says to me sorry about what happened but you weren t exactly clear about what you were asking . The tea did come very quickly after we checked. Another interesting example is at dinner me and my husband exchanged comments on the wagyu that it is lacking compared to what we have had before. It wasn t too big a deal and comparing American wagyu (beef was from Idaho) with Japanese wagyu probably wasn t fair, but a gentleman working for the hotel overheard us and made a point to stop by and told us why the beef is so great and educated us on the cut and such. I clearly felt that he wanted to defend the food they serve, and in my opinion maybe going too far.

We enjoyed our stay but cannot help comparing this hotel to the ones we stayed at with similar/comparable emphasis and food theme (for example, Hiiragiya in Japan). The inn at little Washington is doing a respectable job but could still improve on minor details. Bottom line: It is definitely worth the visit if you are in the area.