Iron Chef - Broadcast History

Broadcast History

The stage setting for the show, "Kitchen Stadium" (キッチンスタジアム, Kitchin Sutajiamu?), the high-quality (and sometimes very expensive) ingredients used in the cooking battles, and Kaga's extravagant costumes required the show to have a budget far higher than that of most other cooking shows. Some statistics: 893 portions of foie gras, 54 sea breams, 827 Ise shrimp, 964 matsutake mushrooms, 4,593 eggs, 1,489 truffles, 4,651 grams of caviar, and 84 pieces of shark fin were used during the show, bringing the total grocery bill to ¥843,354,407 (or about $7,115,520). One of the most expensive battles was Battle Swallow's Nest, which ran over $40,000 solely for that ingredient, not counting large quantities of shark's fin; for the battle, the producers were permitted to return any unused portions to Hattori Nutrition College.

For the show's grand finale, the Iron Chefs faced off against each other with the winner to face French chef Alain Passard, owner of Michelin three-star restaurant L’Arpege, with the winner dubbed the "King of Iron Chefs".

In the first round, Iron Chef Chinese Chen defeated Iron Chef Italian Kobe in Battle Pork (Tokyo X). In the second round Iron Chef French Sakai defeated Iron Chef Japanese Morimoto in Battle Bell Pepper. In the final match, Sakai defeated Chen in Battle Homard Lobster and was dubbed "King of Iron Chefs."

In the final bonus match in Kitchen Stadium, with all of the current and previous Iron Chefs looking on, Iron Chef French Sakai defeated Alain Passard in Battle Long-Gang Chicken. Thus, Hiroyuki Sakai was dubbed as both "King of Iron Chefs" and "The No. 1 in the World."

There were two reunion specials produced in 2000. The first was "The Millennium Special"; the second was "New York Special", staged in a makeshift Kitchen Stadium at Webster Hall in New York City, and was the first appearance of Bobby Flay. Another reunion episode of the show (entitled "Iron Chef: 21st Century Battle") was produced and broadcast in 2001. A final reunion episode was produced and broadcast in 2002, entitled "The Japan Cup".

The show was presented in the United States and Canada on the Food Network, dubbed and/or subtitled into English. It is also actively broadcast on SBS TV in Australia. In the case of SBS this is unusual as the network has a policy favouring in-house subtitling. It may be felt that the tone given to the show by its American dub is essential to its charms, heightened perhaps by the fact that in most episodes, the flamboyant Chairman is subtitled instead of dubbed. However, episodes aired since February 2009 have seen the Chairman's voice dubbed rather than subtitled as was the case in previous airings, except when he sends the chefs into battle.

The show is also currently being broadcast on the Finnish channel SubTV, as well as the Swedish channel TV400 (TV4). Iron Chef was also broadcast on Challenge in the UK in 2003 and 2004, as part of its "Japanese Christmas Cracker" and "Japanorama" strands.

The show had again aired in the U.S. on the Fine Living Network from May 5, 2008 until the channel went off the air on May 30, 2010; however, the music from earlier broadcasts, taken from the film Backdraft, had been replaced due to music licensing issues with NBC Universal. The Cooking Channel picked up the series on June 1, 2010, when it replaced Fine Living. The stations that have carried the series, Fine Living, Cooking Channel and Food Network, are all owned by Scripps Networks Interactive.