The Inn at Little Washington Chef Wants to Open a Casual Cafe in D.C.

Little Washington to Big Washington

Chef Patrick O’Connell is opening a casual spinoff of his three Michelin-starred Inn at Little Washington, and the forthcoming Rappahannock County location could soon have a sibling spot in D.C. Washingtonian reports that O’Connell is building a cafe inside an old post office in Washington, Virginia, that will serve house-roasted coffee and “deceptively simple” food like table-side Caesar salad, matzo ball soup, and omelets. O’Connell, who has spent the past 40 years perfecting service at the Inn, hopes to open the first cafe in late summer 2020 and has already been scouting locations in the District. “The plan is to perfect that first location off-Broadway,” he tells the magazine. “And then we’re open to replicating it in a more urban locality.” [W]

Meat-free hotel alert

The progressive-minded Eaton DC hotel downtown will forgo meat this month in response to the record-breaking fires destroying the Amazon rainforest. Impossible burgers will sub in for Angus beef patties at lobby-level restaurant American Son, with 20 percent of proceeds donated to D.C.-based Amazon Watch. In other Eaton news, chef Hamilton Johnson, who closed Vidalia successor Honeysuckle in April, is now working the line:

Reopening in suburbia

Clifton, Virginia, mainstay Trummer’s on Main reopened this week after a monthlong overhaul. Victoria and Stefan Trummer’s decade-old American bistro, formerly known as Trummer’s on Main, now goes by the abbreviated Trummer’s. A “more approachable and simplified” menu relies on a new, French rotisserie oven to make spit-roasted meats, seafood and vegetables. M.S. Vicas Interiors helped lighten and cozy up the reimagined space.

Pizza wire

Neighborhood staple La Villa pizza burned down during the early hours of Monday morning at the corner of 14th and Crittenden Street NW, notes Popville, and it appears the damage is pretty extensive: