When customers come into BlackSalt, Pearl Dive, or any of the Black Restaurant Group‘s other upscale Washington, D.C. restaurants hankering for crab, more often than not they are hoping to dig into some fresh blue crabs that were caught locally, says M.J. Gimbar, the group’s chief fishmonger.

“In the D.C.-Maryland area, people want Maryland crab cakes,” says Gimbar. But they’re not always getting what they think they’re getting.

Gimbar works with trusted local suppliers to fill that demand when blue crabs are in season in Maryland and Virginia. The rest of the year, he sources the same species of crab from Florida and Gulf Coast states, while being transparent about where it was caught. But not everyone in the industry plays