Celebrity chef Alton Brown brings live culinary variety show to Louisville in 'last tour'

Food Network celebrity chef Alton Brown is coming to Louisville and serving up a new culinary variety show, which he says is part of his final multi-city tour.

The host of "Good Eats," "Iron Chef America," and other cable cooking shows, has been touring the U.S. with his “Beyond the Eats” culinary variety show which comes to Louisville's Kentucky Center, 501 W. Main St., on April 3. Tickets are now on sale at ticketmaster.com.

Brown said if you've ever wondered about the science behind popular cooking techniques, "Beyond the Eats" will help break it down but not in a typical cooking show kind of way. Audiences can expect more cooking, more comedy, more outrageous props, more music, and more potentially dangerous science stuff than past tours.

He also said this will be the last time he sets out on a multi-city tour.

"This is my third full-scale tour and it takes a lot of time and energy. I am turning 60 years old and there are a lot of things I still need to do so I am saying this will be my last tour," Brown told the Courier Journal. "I am not saying I will never appear live again because there is a special energy to performing live with an audience. They give you energy and you can't get in a studio, but this will be my last multi-city tour."

You may like: Janet Jackson, New Edition to perform first concert at Lynn Family Stadium on Derby night

Brown has been producing and hosting television cooking shows since he created "Good Eats" for the Food Network in 1999. Fans may not realize this but Brown was not only the creator of "Good Eats" but he also directed over 200 episodes and wrote every script.

He's also served as a commentator on "Iron Chef America," and has been a mentor and judge on "Food Network Star" and "Cutthroat Kitchen."

When he isn't in the studio, Brown takes a more irreverent show on the road. He says the combination cooking and variety show, which he changes up every few years, is filled with lots of "what he can not do on television."

He was last in Louisville in 2016 with his "Eat Your Science" tour and before that he visited multiple cities throughout the United States with a tour he called “Edible Inevitable.”

He also spent time in the early 2000s in Louisville consulting with the engineers who designed GE's line of Trivection ovens. The company asked Brown to teach their engineers to cook so that they would better understand the way their appliances are used.

When it comes to explaining the "hows" and "whys" of cooking, there may be no better celebrity chef than Brown. Whether in a studio setting or a live presentation like his "Beyond The Eats" tour, he manages to explain culinary science in an informative and accessible way, which also happens to include original, food-related songs performed by the chef's three-piece band, comedy, puppets and potentially dangerous food demonstrations with audience participation.

You may like: When is Louder Than Life 2022? Everything to know about Louisville's rock festival

"It's actually a lot easier to anticipate what happens with the food demonstrations than what will happen when audience volunteers come up on stage," he said. "Not long ago, we had a guy volunteer who turned out to have been extremely overserved in the alcohol department and we were a little concerned about how that was going to turn out."

The show turned out to be fine and Brown insists that inebriated audience members are not the reason he's decided to stop touring at the end of the "Beyond The Eats" tour. It is more a matter of time. The television personality, author, private pilot, and musician has many interests and wants to be sure he has time to explore them all.

"I believe when you get bored, it's time to move on," Brown told the Courier Journal. "I have done that with my television shows and I can't say that I am bored with touring but there are just a lot of other things, which I am not going to tell you about, but that I want to have time to pursue."

Reach Kirby Adams at kadams@courier-journal.com or Twitter @kirbylouisville.

Alton Brown Live: Beyond the Eats

WHAT: A culinary variety show with lots of audience participation

WHERE: Kentucky Center, 501 W Main St., Louisville

WHEN: April 3, 6:30 p.m.

COST: Tickets are $53 and up, plus fees via ticketmaster.com

MORE INFORMATION: altonbrown.com

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Celebrity chef Alton Brown brings 'Beyond the Eats' to Louisville