Thursday, October 9, 2008

Tabard Inn

I met friends last night for drinks at one of my favorite establishments in DC: the Tabard Inn. Besides having a wonderful restaurant, the charming little hotel has a nice cozy bar area as well. Housed in 3 old joined townhouses on a quiet and charming street right in Dupont Circle, the inn was named after a hotel in England which is referred to in Geoffrey Chaucer’s “The Canterbury Tales” as a place of respite for pilgrims. The 3 townhouses are all painted gray to blend in with one another.
As you can see, the individual pieces aren't neccesarily nice, but have a lot of personality and charm -adding to the overall ambiance. The dim lighting helps!
Each room of the Inn is decorated individually with quirky antiques and every bedroom has a secretary with books inside! House and Home, an interiors magazine published in Dublin, Ireland, chose a small room in the Tabard Inn for inclusion in an article on the 30 most beautiful bedrooms in the world in its May/June 2005 issue. Rates are very cheap for rooms, but you MAY have to share a bathroom (not sure how I feel about that!). Read more about the inn online HERE.

10 comments:

Alex said...

I love the ambiance of the Tabard inn. Although that might just be my one experience there. Oliver and I went over after hours to hang out with one of the guys he used to work with at PS7's. He had since become a waiter there, and low and behold, there were two waitresses there who...wait for it...I went to high school with back in Portland...Oregon. Awesomeness.

Anyway, it reminds me in some ways of the victorian style coffee houses that are back in Portland, with the old furniture, and the air thick with ambiance...maybe it's just me...

ArchitectDesign™ said...

What a small world, Alex!! It's not just you, I think you hit the nail on the head!

Pamela Terry and Edward said...

My kind of place.

pve design said...

love the gray and the awning.

Kwana said...

It looks quite swanky and moody.

ArchitectDesign™ said...

Yes, gray is my favorite color, pve! lol The interiors are really moody, Kwana - it's not off base to call it swank! The restaurant is even more swanky and a bit $$ but VERY good!

Pigtown*Design said...

Great little place. Do you know the City Tavern Club in G-Town? Sort of like this.

Americans get very squiky about sharing the loo with people they don't know.

ArchitectDesign™ said...

PD i'm very open minded about many things, but I still have my puritanical 'i need my own private' bathroom americanism. I don't want to share with ANYONE! My grandparents even say that the key to their 65+ yr marriage is having seperate bathrooms and sperate tvs.

Scott Fazzini said...

That scotch looks yummy...

My Notting Hill said...

Fun to see these pics. Years ago I did a series of seminars for a banking group in one of the upper rooms - almost like a large parlor. At every break the participants would head out and scope out all the open rooms - the interiors were so interesting.