Alton Brown on leaving Food Network for Netflix's Iron Chef reboot: "I had to follow that franchise"

Entertainment Weekly

What many of Brown's fans may not realize is that him joining Netflix's Iron Chef: Quest for an Iron Legend is also him leaving Food Network, which he has called home for the past two decades. "You know what? I don't think goodbye," he tells EW. "Goodbye is really final. Perhaps au revoir or adieu for now. I don't really think of myself as having left a place as much as I simply crossed the street to join one of my first loves. I had 20 pretty spectacular years at Food Network. I built a brand there. I became part of Iron Chef America there. But to be honest, if Netflix had taken a shot at Iron Chef without me, that would have broken my heart. (Laughs) So I had to follow that franchise, which has been such a big part of my life and a really big part of my career. And as it evolves into something new and spectacular, I just had to be a part of it." Brown adds: "I simply knew that if Netflix was going to have a go at rebooting Iron Chef — and they have in a magnificent way — if I was going to be invited to the party, I was going to the party, and there was nothing that would have kept me from doing that. It is such an incredibly vital franchise to me. I've learned through many, many years of doing hundreds of episodes of that show, to have a chance of being part of this new reimagining which is amazingly brilliant, it's just not something that I could not do. So no, it was a very easy decision."