be allowed to work that night. The Inn has

be allowed to work that night.

The Inn has won virtually every award and superlative known in the world of dining and hospitality. But it opened on a snowy evening in February 1978 in a former country store and auto service garage that its two founders rented for $200 a month. They had begun washing dishes and fixing dinners for columnist James J. Kilpatrick's Rappahannock dinner parties, and build a successful catering service that evolved into a restaurant where the entries averaged $6 to $8 a plate. (Fixed-price dinner at the Inn now is $98 a person Monday through Thursday, $108 on Friday and Sunday, and $128 on Saturday, the book says.)

The owners, who in 1978 couldn’t get a $50,000 start up loan from the Rappahannock National Bank, recently spent $3.5 million on a new kitchen wing, which also includes two new guest suites. "Patrick wanted the nicest kitchen in America," the book quotes the kitchen designer who oversaw the project.

Though Lynch & O’Connell sounds like the name of a Dublin law firm, the two partners are polar opposites who bring complementary talents to their enterprise. Lynch is the Indiana-born numbers guy with an eye on the bottom line. O'Connell is a child of suburban Maryland who roamed Europe and dreamed of his own restaurant.

"This is the team of the artist and the businessman," the book quotes Lynch as saying, "You can ask Patrick what somebody ate a year ago, and he’ll be able to tell you in great detail. Ask him how much business we did a year ago, and he doesn't have a clue."

The author is generous in his praise for the men and their business, but he does not flinch from reporting on the "complicated relationship" between the Inn and the Town of Washington in which it operates. "The town is dependent on the Inn, but some locals resent their