Duck has always been on the Egyptian table; slow-cooked, pulled apart, served the way grandmothers have made it for generations. What it has never really been, at least not until recently, is a gourmet sandwich served in restaurants, a carefully constructed, sauce-calibrated, sourdough-ciabatta situation with caramelised onions and Dijon mustard. And it was almost certainly never on an app order at 9pm, not when chicken has always been the safe bet, the crowd-pleaser. That is, until Reem Elmasry tried a duck sandwich somewhere in Europe and couldn't stop thinking about it.

"It was love at first taste," she says. Elmasry is a chef, which means culinary encounters like that one don't just satisfy a craving, they also open a door. She spent the next couple of years walking through it, developing recipes, testing combinations, working out what it would mean to take duck - beloved and underestimated in equal measure - and rebuild it from the sandwich up. Then she launched DUX - or as their tagline puts it, a chance to finally duck the ordinary.The menu is the clearest expression of that. The Duck Confit Sandwich anchors the queue; shredded, slow-cooked duck, tender enough to fall apart on contact, layered over arugula with caramelised onions and Dijon mustard on a signature sourdough ciabatta. The Wasabi Duck, on the other hand, goes somewhere else entirely; a sharp, zesty wasabi mayo that cuts through the duck's richness. Then there's the Juicy Quack with smoky BBQ, DUX's signature sauce, crunchy red cabbage, all piled into a brioche bun so soft it barely survives the journey from wrapper to mouth.

For the duck-skeptical, the chicken lineup holds its own, they have Peri Peri, Cajun, Fajita, each made with the same attention to sauce and balance that runs through the whole menu. But duck is unapologetically the star. "Duck is so undervalued in Egypt, even though there are many duck lovers," Elmasry says.When Elmasry applied to Million Pound Menu Egypt, she wasn't just looking for money. "There are countless challenges that you face when you start an F&B business, and not just finance-related," she says. "I applied to find a partner that can support me with operations, guidance, know-how, and experience." The preparation included long nights with her team, stress-testing the pitch, building a case that could hold up under real scrutiny from four of the biggest names in Egypt's F&B scene. "The challenge of getting a rush of orders in a very short time while being recorded by a dozen of cameras and having four of the biggest names in the industry as a judging panel was very stressful but thankfully everything flowed smoothly once we started taking orders and serving our customers," she says.

The investors didn't deliberate long; all four voted yes, unanimously, the best surprise Elmasry could have wished for. Right now, DUX operates through Talabat and Rabbit, out of a kitchen in Golden Square in 5th Settlement. Since launching, DUX has also introduced "Mama Duck", a traditional duck platter built for sharing — the kind of dish that bridges the home kitchen and the restaurant menu in a single order. "Our customers are gourmands, explorers, foodistas, people with fine taste, regardless of age," ElMasry tells SceneEats.Duck, it turns out, has always had broader appeal than anyone gave it credit for. It just needed someone to take it off grandma's table and build it a menu of its own. And Cairo is beginning to agree.