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Route 2 Box 203, White Post, Va.
1-800-638-1702, (540) 837-1375
Hours of Operation and Prices
Dinner: W-Sat 6-10:30, Sun 5-9
Fixed-Price: $57
Closed: M-T
Other Information
• Credit Cards: All major
• Dress: Jacket required
• Reservations: Recommended
• Parking: Free
• Handicapped accessible
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This small inn looks like just what I would hope to find at the end of a drive in the country. The public rooms are divided into charming spaces, from a cozy lounge with sofas for lingering before or after dinner to French provincial dining rooms with large windows overlooking a peaceful field. It also has a gift shop, in case the French provincial pottery proves irresistible.
Yet this is no casual drop-by-for-a-bite country eatery. It serves grand and expensive fixed-price dinners of five courses, including a palate-cleansing sorbet before the entree. The presentations are dramatic and architectural, with pastry ladders and waving branches of herbs. Seafood is whipped into mousses, perhaps with nuggets of oyster hidden inside. Sweetbreads might be moistened with port sauce and sprinkled with capers in sharp contrast. Much of the cooking, though, seems to have the flavor refined right out of it. I preferred L'Auberge Provencal's cooking in its earlier, more robust mode.
In general, appetizers, soups and salads outshine the entrees, and dessert is the highlight. If you consider it worth a long ride and a $150-a-couple tab for a bucolic Old World setting and masterly service, you'll at least be rewarded in the end with a truly fine creme brulee.
© Copyright 1998 The Washington Post Company
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