Old Maryland Grill’s intense focus on Maryland cuisine extends even to its dessert menu.

Now the high-end College Park restaurant from Mike Franklin has gotten notice for one of its state specialties: Smith Island Cake.

Located 10 miles from shore and accessible only by ferry, Smith Island is home to a few hundred people in what is now a 400-year-old fishing village.

In the 1800s, when the island’s men would go on the autumn oyster harvest, their wives would make cakes to send along. Over the years, Smith Island Cake became legendary and in 2008 it was named the official state dessert.

National Geographic once named the cake one of five American desserts “worth the trip.”

But that may not be necessary, as the Washington Post declared Old Maryland Grill’s version of the cake one of D.C.’s “can’t miss desserts.”

“The freshest version in the Washington area is, appropriately enough, at the Old Maryland Grill in College Park, where the moist layers are separated by a rich, fudgey frosting,” noted the Post. “Chocolate ice cream is served on the side, but this slab of cake is good enough to stand on its own.”

The cake is the handiwork of Old Maryland Grill pastry chef Annie Clemmons, who previously worked at the two Michelin-starred restaurant Cyrus in California’s wine country before relocating to the D.C. area in 2011.

Clemmons brings some of the culinary heft that Mike Franklin sought when opening his second restaurant, having worked with such noted chefs as Thomas Keller of the French Laundry, James Beard-award winner Nancy Silverton, Remi Lauvand and Douglas Keane.