These days chef José Andrés is best known for his humanitarian work across the globe, but last week he dove into a political and culinary issue now facing D.C., the city where he opened his first restaurant more than three decades ago.
“So we are banning all meats? If Duck goes all goes next?” he wrote on X to his 1.1 million followers, encouraging people to “concentrate on things that matter.”
Andrés was criticizing Initiative 86, the D.C. ballot measure that seeks to ban the production and sale of foods that result from the force-feeding of fowl — largely foie gras, the French delicacy that comes from the fattened livers of ducks and geese.
“Yes let’s bring the ducks now,” Andrés wrote. “... one more issue for restaurants to handle!”
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The ballot initiative has been quietly floating through D.C.’s political process for the better part of a year. The Washington Sun first reported on it in June, in a story featuring a politically engaged (and likely self-interested) duck. But with ballots having been mailed to every registered voter and the Nov. 3 election less than a week off, the question is now directly facing the city’s residents — many of whom may be saying, “Qu’est-ce que c’est?”
The initiative has also thrown D.C.’s restaurateurs into a political and ethical debate they may not want to have right now, especially as the city’s hospitality industry struggles to survive an economic slump, and individual chefs may be hesitant to make their opinions known for fear of social media backlash.
“I don’t really like foie gras, but I do think restaurants should have the right to serve it,” said Geoff Tracy, the owner of Chef Geoff’s. “It’s one additional regulation or one more thing we have to deal with. Just leave us alone for a little bit. This is a nothing burger, but you still have to push back and say, ‘Enough is enough.’”
The ballot initiative has been spearheaded by Pro-Animal Future D.C., a local chapter of a Colorado-based animal rights group that has pushed similar efforts in Portland and Denver, where voters will also be deciding the issue next week. (Foie gras has been partially banned in California, and its production is restricted in many European countries.)
Its volunteer and paid petition circulators worked through the earlier part of the year collecting signatures to get Initiative 86 on the ballot; they submitted some 31,000 signatures to the city’s elections board over the summer, qualifying the initiative for the November ballot.
The group says it targeted D.C. both because it allows ballot initiatives and because, for as niche a product as foie gras may be, it is available in a number of restaurants in the city. “D.C. is the third top consumer of foie gras, so getting rid of it would have a big impact on the foie gras industry,” said Natalie Fulton, a spokesperson for Pro-Animal Future.
That industry, she added, is particularly inhumane. “Factory farming is cruel, but foie gras farms are uniquely cruel because ducks are force fed,” she said. The campaign has leaned heavily into this, including imagery of ducks with feeding tubes down their throats.
For some voters, the campaign has been convincing.
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“I voted for it because it seems inhumane to me and unfair to the ducks,” said David Abramson, a Ward 1 voter who cast a ballot on Monday in Columbia Heights. “There’s always a balance between regulation and freedom to engage in these things. In the same way that there are laws about abuse of pets and other animals, I feel the same should apply here.”
Michael Votta, who emerged from the same early-voting center only minutes later, saw it differently. “It’s not really the government’s business,” he said. “If somebody wants to farm more sustainably or less sustainably, I would rather that be left to the consumer rather than be legislated.”
That’s the position taken by Bart Hutchins, a co-owner of the buzzy Capitol Hill restaurant Butterworth’s, who serves foie gras on his menu. (Andrés also offers Cotton Candy Foie Gras on the menu of The Bazaar at the Waldorf Astoria.) He argues that not only is the production not as harmful to ducks as critics claim, but that targeting foie gras ignores more significant issues with factory-farmed meats that are eaten by far more Americans.
“Commercial pigs are disgusting. Commercial chickens, too,” Hutchins told The Sun this summer. “We could ban the sales of animals raised that way, or there are many ways we could be conscious of animals and the quality of our foods, but this isn’t one.”
Leah Curran Moon and Michael Jantz Moon, owners of the DC Vegan restaurant, take issue with Hutchins’ advocacy for foie gras. “No dish is worth this level of cruelty,” they wrote in a statement. “Chefs around the world proudly serve exceptional cuisine without foie gras, proving that compassion and culinary excellence belong on the same plate.”
James Nance agrees. The D.C.-based lawyer is also a very specific type of food influencer; to his more than 42,000 followers, he’s just D.C. Carnivores. “I don’t like factory farming, but it’s going to be here,” he told The Sun. “I separate that from foie gras because foie gras seems very unnecessary.”
Geoff Tracy and other critics of Initiative 86 say it’s about more than just foie gras; it’s about who gets to tell restaurants what they can and can’t do. Over the past decade, the tipped minimum wage that restaurants have long used became a central topic of debate, resulting in two separate ballot initiatives aiming to eliminate it, and a third potentially coming in the next year.
“I think the District is just such an easy place for outside agencies to get something on a ballot and have it impact the city,” Tracy said. “The question is: Do the voters really want to be weighing in on this? It’s so out of left field.”
That’s where outgoing Mayor Muriel Bowser seems to fall in the debate over whether foie gras should be banned. “I have an issue with national issues being dumped on D.C. residents, and I think this may be one such issue,” she told The Sun this week, referring to the significant amount of out-of-state money — more than $350,000 — that fueled the anti-foie gras campaign. “That should give you some hint where I’m going.”
Fulton of Pro-Animal Future disagrees that Initiative 86 is some out-of-left-field issue pushed by out-of-towners. “We have hundreds of local D.C. people working on this,” she said, citing local protests that flared up outside restaurants that serve foie gras.
Ahead of next week’s election, Hutchins isn’t ducking the issue — in fact, he’s leaning into it. This week Butterworth’s is hosting “Foie Gras At The End Of The World: A Tasting Menu,” which Hutchins calls a “four-course send-off” for foie gras. The proceeds will also go toward an eventual defense fund for any restaurants that could be fined up to $5,000 for serving foie gras, should Initiative 86 be approved by voters and implemented by the D.C. Council.
“Sometimes you have to push back on the ridiculousness,” Tracy said.
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