Category:Iron Chef

Iron Chef (料理の鉄人, Ryōri no Tetsujin, literally "Ironmen of Cooking") is a Japanese television cooking show produced by Fuji Television. The series, which premiered on October 10, 1993, was a stylized cook-off featuring guest chefs challenging one of the show's resident "Iron Chefs" in a timed cooking battle built around a specific theme ingredient. The series ended on September 24, 1999, although four occasional specials were produced from January 5, 2000 to January 2, 2002. The series aired 309 episodes.

The host of the show was the flamboyant Takeshi Kaga, known on the show as the aristocrat Chairman Kaga (鹿賀主宰, Kaga Shusai). He began most episodes with his signature words, taken from Arthur Rimbaud, "If memory serves me right...「私の記憶が確かならば…」"(Jadis) si je me souviens bien..." and started the cooking time with the phrase "Allez Cuisine!". The show had two regular commentators, Kenji Fukui, who narrated the action on the floor, and Yukio Hattori, a food scholar and founder of the Hattori Nutrition College. A floor reporter, Shinichiro Ohta, reported to Fukui on what the challengers and Iron Chefs were preparing, their strategy, and their comments, breaking Fukui's train of commentary with a polite "Fukui-san?". One or two guest commentators (who also served as judges) also made frequent appearances. The commentary covered ingredients, history of contenders, and other background information to give viewers context for what was happening in the kitchen.

The kayfabe "story" behind Iron Chef is recounted at the beginning of every episode. A title card, with a quote from famed French food author Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin first appeared: "Tell me what you eat, and I'll tell you what you are." Then, it was said that Kaga "realized his dream in a form never seen before" and specially constructed a cooking arena called "Kitchen Stadium". There, visiting chefs from "around the world" would compete against his Gourmet Academy, led by his three (later four) Iron Chefs. Chairman Kaga himself was a showpiece, dressed in outlandish examples of men's formal attire. The English name Iron Chef comes from the show itself: Kaga would use this translation of the Japanese title when summoning his chefs at the beginning of the "battle".

From the beginning of the show in 1993, the three Iron Chefs were: Iron Chef Japanese Rokusaburo Michiba, Iron Chef Chinese Chen Kenichi, and Iron Chef French Yutaka Ishinabe. After the first season, Ishinabe decided to step down and become an 'honorary Iron Chef', thus passing the mantle of Iron Chef French to Hiroyuki Sakai in 1994. Ishinabe returned for two more battles during season three. At the beginning of season four in 1996, Michiba announced his retirement and debuted Koumei Nakamura as the new Iron Chef Japanese. Michiba returned on rare occasions for special Kitchen Stadium battles. In 1997, Chairman Kaga announced a new, additional Iron Chef to the group: Iron Chef Italian Masahiko Kobe. He was the youngest of the Iron Chefs and battled sparingly throughout the rest of the show, ascending to the stage separately from the three main Iron Chefs, and surrounded by a chamber string ensemble. In 1998, Nakamura also decided to retire and passed the title of Iron Chef Japanese to Masaharu Morimoto.

Starting around 1997, Iron Chef was shown, on KTSF in San Francisco, KSCI in Long Beach, as well as stations in Hawaii and the New York City area, in its original Japanese version with English subtitles, and quickly became a cult hit. In summer of 1998, the show stopped using subtitles; Fuji TV released a statement saying that the show was intended as a "service to the Japanese community abroad" and due to Japanese copyright laws were to be aired without subtitles, which had previously been provided "inadvertently."