The Food Network Show Fans Wish Would Return

Like most television channels, the Food Network has seen several programs come and go in its tenure. Though the current show lineup (via Food Network's website) is filled with many long-running favorites including "Beat Bobby Flay," "The Kitchen" and "Chopped" — currently in its remarkable 49th season, per TV Guide – a number of other hit programs have unfortunately seen their last days on the channel.

One series that is particularly missed by devotees is "Iron Chef America," an adaptation of the grudge-match competition "Iron Chef" that originally aired in Japan, according to Food Network. The series is described as a battle in which a new challenger is brought in to the Kitchen Stadium and goes head to head against an esteemed Iron Chef title holder. The hour-long program follows the two sides as they create several dishes centered around a secret ingredient that's revealed at the beginning of the episode. And host Alton Brown provides commentary along the way.

"Iron Chef America" premiered in 2005 and ran for 13 seasons before the series finale aired in 2018 (via IMDB), though it's hardly been forgotten by avid Food Network watchers. In fact, the series was recently the subject of a Reddit thread in late March 2021 in which several fans came together to make a case for its return.

The Reddit thread was started by user TheNeimanChannel who proclaimed that they thought "Iron Chef America" would be "the best show to come back right now." They further predicted that it would likely still be a hit considering the popularity of a somewhat similar Food Network competition series, "Tournament of Champions," and noted that it would provide for more variety in the chefs that are often found on Food Network programs these days. 

A number of Redditors chimed in to agree with the sentiments, including user Jerf1 who said, "If they want to turn Food Network into just a cooking competition channel (which they clearly want to do) then they might as well bring back arguably the greatest cooking competition show ever." Another user agreed as well, though suggested that the spinoff series "The Next Iron Chef," which sets out to find someone new to promote to the title (according to Food Network), should come back first in order to "get some new contenders."

If Food Network isn't sure where to fit a reboot of the series into their schedule, they fortunately have some options. The introduction of the streaming platform Discovery+, for example, has provided a home for a number of former staples of the network like "Good Eats" — perhaps this could be an option for an "Iron Chef America" reboot as well.