‘Iron Chef’: Is Chairman Mark Dacascos an Actor?
“Allez cuisine!” When contestants hear the Chairman announce those two words on Food Network’s Iron Chef America and Netflix’s Iron Chef: Quest for an Iron Legend, it’s time to start preparing five dishes for judges in under 60 minutes, with the first dish due after just 20 minutes.
The Chairman has been a staple character of the franchise for its entire run, going back to the original Iron Chef from Japan.
The first chairman of ‘Iron Chef’ was also in a famous musical
The Chairman is a persona who MCs each Iron Chef contest. The first Iron Chef in Japan ran for seven seasons starting in 1993. Takeshi Kaga played the first Chairman for all seven seasons. In the intro, Kaga takes a bite out of a yellow pepper.
Kaga introduced the challenger each week on Iron Chef, explaining the backstory of the guest. Chefs who challenged the seven Iron Chefs. Famous guests included Buddhist priest Soutetsu Fujii during Battle Yam, French chef Alain Passard (the final contestant on the original show), and Bobby Flay before he made it big on Food Network.
Although he was never a judge, Chairman Kaga got to feast on each dish at the end of each show. Popgogi reports that Kaga consumed nearly 2.4 million calories on Iron Chef.
Before and after the cooking reality show, Kaga acted in theatre. He most notably played Jean Valjean and Javert in 1987 in a Japanese production of Les Misérables. He played that role again in 1995 during a 10th-anniversary celebration at Royal Albert Hall in London where Valejans from 17 different countries sang on stage in the encore.
The American version of the Chairman, Mark Dacascos, is a stuntman by trade
Iron Chef America burst onto the scene in 2005 with a similar format as the original. The Chairman was back, this time played by American stuntman and actor Mark Dacascos, as IMDb reports. The intro said he was the nephew of Chairman Kaga, but this was a fictitious way to link the new show with the original.
This time, the Chairman bowed to a yellow pepper, tossed it aside, and bit into an apple during each intro. Then he would do a backflip to demonstrate his acrobatic skills. Rather than the reserved Chairman Kaga, Dacascos would frequently shout “Allez cuisine!” to jumpstart each round.
Dacascos is a martial artist and stuntman with a wide repertoire of American and international credits. He played in Hawaii Five-O, John Wick Chapter 3: Parabellum, and Agents of Shield.
Even though both Chairmen were really actors, the show’s premise was that everyone on set must refer to him as “Chairman” to keep up the mystique, according to The Village Voice. Other behind-the-scenes secrets highlight how the show really isn’t as hard as producers make it out to be.
Little known fact from IMDb: The Chairman for the 2001 special Iron Chef USA, the incarnation before Iron Chef America, was Capt. James T. Kirk himself, William Shatner!
The secret ingredient of ‘Iron Chef’ isn’t so secret
Although Iron Chef America was one of Food Network’s highest-value productions, not everything was so hotly contested.
ABC News went behind the scenes in 2008. Iron Chefs and challengers alike receive a short list of secret ingredients ahead of time. Mashed reports that the two chefs even contact each other and agree on which ingredient they want.
The Iron Chefs people see on the podium in the fog are actually stand-ins because the contestant has already been chosen ahead of time. An entire recording can take several hours. If a dish doesn’t turn out right, one of the sous chefs can cook a hot meal for the judges to taste. Judging actually takes about two hours, not five to 10 minutes as depicted on TV.
Despite the fakeness of Iron Chef America, a streaming service jumped in to revitalize the franchise after it stopped airing regular episodes in 2014.
Netflix and its quest for the next Iron Chef
The band got back together in 2022 for eight episodes. After a limited series in 2018 on Food Network, Netflix stepped in to reboot the brand with Iron Chef: Quest for an Iron Legend.
Alton Brown (now formerly of Food Network) co-hosted the event with Top Chef winner Kristen Kish. Dacascos returned as the Chairman. Former Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto was a guest judge, as was famed chef Wolfgang Puck.
How did the reboot do? It met with mixed reviews. Mashable seemed to not like it very much; Eater praised the show for highlighting the diverse cultural backgrounds of the challengers. Will Netflix renew the show for a second season? Time will tell.
