Duke’s Grocery, Potomac MD

Duke’s Grocery presents itself predominantly as an upscale pub and rightfully so-

And operates like clockwork that always makes me happy, until and of course, the usual number of items issue rears its ugly head. Owner cleared the date and time of the shoot, I assumed everything is set, and learned that they’ll only be making a fraction of the plates I needed to capture when I walked through the doors and met the GM of this location. Once again, understandable, but a heads up would have been nice. I can’t blame Duke’s not wanting to commit food whose shots they already had because the pricing here is closer to fine dining than a neighborhood pub, nor are the dishes all that basic (and even the basic ones are done absolutely right)-

Would have been fantastic to be able to try a plate or two here, but there was no way my wallet would match the pricing here regardless of how mouth-watering everything looked and smelled. After almost a decade of shooting all sorts of food, I’ve come to appreciate actual, simple home cooked meals over fancy, heavy-hitters from upscale restaurants.