Chicago ? Dining on foie gras – a delicacy made of duck and goose liver – will soon be legal again in Chicago.

The City Council on Wednesday repealed its two-year-old ban on the gourmet dish, drawing dissent from animal rights activists who consider foie gras cruel because the birds are force-fed to make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.

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 that he would begin serving foie gras again as soon as the repeal goes into effect later this month.