Blue Duck Tavern

Cuisine	American
Price	$$$$ (51-100)
Rating	5/10
Last Visit	Sept. 26, 2026
Location	Other: Washington DC

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General Notes

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I had a weird experience at Blue Duck Tavern. We were eyeing the whole smoked duck. We decided to order it (enough entree for 4 people) plus a bunch of small plates / sides. Everything came out very, very slowly. Almost 1.5 hours into our experience, as we were waiting for our entree, we suddenly heard from our waitress and the manager that the duck was unavailable. The chefs determined that it was far too salty and unfit to be served. This came as a surprise because we explicitly confirmed with them several times that the duck was available. This was disappointing but they handled it well -- they comped the entire meal and gave us the opportunity to order other additional dishes, so we ended up each getting a main and a dessert.

The food was decent. I absolutely wouldn't come back at the regular price, but it's hard to beat free. I would be interested in coming back to try the whole duck again sometime though, the one duck entree we got was phenomenal.

Apparently this is one of Barack Obama's favorite restaurants.

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Dishes Tasted

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• ★★☆☆ hand-cut bdt fries -- This is interesting, it's like mash potatoes formed into a giant fry, and then fried. It's decent although I think in the future I'd prefer normal fries.
• ★★☆☆ trout -- lemon preserve, cornbread, hazelnut. The sauce is a bit odd, trout is decent
• ★★★☆ jumbo lump crab cakes -- cress, frisee, radish, lemon caper remoulade
• ★★★★ duck, smoked & roasted breast -- confit leg, fruit mostarda, duck bone reduction. The breast is cooked perfectly and this is one of the best confit leg I've had -- tender, flavorful, and crispy on the outside. I usually don't like confit leg either.
• ★★★☆ dry-aged beef tenderloin -- house-made worcestershire, wild mushrooms. The cook is good and the sauce is nice.
• ★☆☆☆ wood oven-roasted bone marrow -- onion bordelaise, pink peppercorn. this is alright, way too expensive.
• ★★☆☆ soft-poached duck egg -- surryano ham, field pea salad, crimson shallot, mustard vinaigrette. Decent but the ham is too salty. Needs some bread or other accompaniment to balance the saltiness
• ★☆☆☆ charred gem salad -- anchovy dressing, pistachio-lemon aioli, parmesan garlic crumb. This sounded promising but it was a bit disappointing, too much dry stuff.
• ★☆☆☆ cured kanpachi -- verjus, candied kumquates, mustard seed, trout roe. This was meh.