Danielle Wilmot

Review of The Inn at Little Washington

This review is for the restaurant only, not the ho...

This review is for the restaurant only, not the hotel. We visited about a year ago (May 2016). If this were a standard restaurant it probably would be a 4.5-star review, but because of the price and reputation of this place, I believe it's reasonable to hold it to a higher standard. At a place like this you expect perfection, and they fell short on just a few notes.

Firstly, the food was amazing. Everything we tried was delicious, no complaints there whatsoever.

We had told them when making the reservation that it was for my birthday (they had asked if there was a special occasion), but when we arrived, they said "this is an anniversary celebration, right?" Why ask if they're not going to get it right?

Toward the end of the meal we ordered a bottle of dessert wine, and it took a very long time to retrieve it. They did apologize for the delay and noted that they'd had to pull it up from the cellar, but even considering that, it was a long time. A place with this type of reputation needs to be prepared for anything on their menu to be ordered.

Finally, when getting the check, the maitre d' said the wrong name when handing the credit card back to us (on the order of saying "Wilson" instead of "Williams", to give an idea of the level of wrong-ness). He literally had the card in his hand and could have looked at it seconds before.

So on the whole still a very good experience, but the few missteps were enough to detract from what should have, for the price, been perfection. Especially because the nature of at least 2 of them (the occasion and the name) were simply the result of the staff not paying attention to detail and missing some very easy-to-get-right low-hanging fruit.