The City Council on Wednesday repealed its two-year-old ban on the gourmet dish, drawing dissent from animal rights activists who consider foie gras cruel because the birds are force-fed to make their livers bigger.
But there were no worries in chef Didier Durand's restaurant, Cyrano's Bistrot.
"All of us are so excited," Durand told reporters as he held his pet duck, Nicolai, named after French President Nicolas Sarkozy. "People miss it. They used to go to the suburbs to get foie gras and stopped going to specifically French restaurants."
Durand was one of a coalition of restaurateurs who started Chicago Chefs for Choice, a movement to overturn the ban, which went into effect in August 2006. He said Wednesday that he would begin serving foie gras again as soon as the repeal goes into effect later this month.
"You might disagree with serving foie gras, but you don't do a ban and forbid everybody to have foie gras," Durand said. His restaurant was one of many across the city that held foie gras dinners in the days before the ban took effect.
You know what really puts you in that Paris mood after a really good French meal? A relaxing after-dinner cigarette. Oops, that's still banned.
