Duo

I always call a restaurant prior to going to make sure that they can accommodate my numerous allergens; the staff at Duo assured me they could and sounded knowledgeable on the phone. However, my dining experience overall was stressful and unpleasant. Let me say at the start that my food did taste good and I did not get sick, but I will never be back.

The problems were that when my server did not know the ingredients that were in menu items, she reasonably excused herself and went to the chef to ask about these. Through my server, the chef answered some of my questions, but refused to answer others - What exactly my food would be cooked in (with dairy and corn allergens, many oil blends contain my allergens) - How would my potatoes would be cooked? If fried, do they have a gluten free fryer? If cooked in a pan, what would they be cooked with? when I told my server that I needed to know the answer to these remaining questions she excused herself again, stating that she would see if the chef would come talk to me herself. After that, our server avoided our table rather than tell me how my food would be cooked - this is only partially her fault since the chef was declining to answer the questions. Let me just add here that when we ordered our food, there was only 1 other table seated so the chef presumably had plenty of time to answer these questions (as time went on with them continuing to dodge questions, more tables did fill up).

After about 20 minutes of avoiding even looking at me, I finally caught my server’s eye, flagged her down and she came over. I asked my couple of remaining questions again and she gave me a placating answer about the kitchen having my allergen list and everything would be fine. I insisted that I would not feel comfortable eating my food if I did not know how it was prepared. Finally, this was relayed to the kitchen and I received an answer and learned that one of my brunch items would have been fine the way they planned to make it and the other would have contaminated my food and made me very ill. We discussed a correction in the plan and this was relayed to the kitchen and put into place. My food came, it tasted average and did not make me ill.

As a side note: while I was told on the phone that a number of the menu items would work for me with a little adjustment, I learned during the ordering process that this was not the case. it seems that many components of meals were cooked ahead in ways that made them unsafe for me rather than cooking to order.

I came here with family members to celebrate a birthday. Had I not been with a group, I would have left rather than continue to deal with the miserable and stressful process of trying to eat safely at Duo. I will never be back.

Celiac friendly?

No