Stanley Tucci dispels myth about traveling to and eating in Italy
Stanley Tucci chats with USA TODAY’s Ralphie Aversa about his National Geographic series, “Tucci in Italy” and and the country’s cuisine.
FLORENCE, Italy – Dinner with Stanley Tucci is how a great meal should be: delicious, leisurely, and memorable.
Tucci hosted journalists last June at a restaurant on a cobblestone street. Dapper, elegant, and sophisticated without being a dandy, precious, or condescending, he’s spreading the joy of Italian food. He highlights dishes and chefs in his new five-part series, Nat Geo’s “Tucci in Italy,” premiering May 18 (8 ET/PT), and streaming the next day on Disney+ and Hulu.
Besides being an Oscar-nominated actor and an author of books about food, Tucci is an accomplished home cook. He stresses he’s not a chef, just an amateur cook. Still, Tucci cares deeply about food, and half of his six Emmy Awards were for his similar 2021-22 CNN show, “Searching for Italy.”
“We’re elevating it visually,” Tucci says, differentiating the culinary travelogue series. “And we’re taking more time with the stories. There’s more history, more culture. It’s National Geographic, but you’re not going to find me climbing up anything. You find me climbing into bed at night.”
The key to the show is Italy itself. As Tucci traverses the country, viewers learn why food varies even from town to town. In Trentino-Alto Adige, nestled in the Alps, Austria influences the dishes. In Calvisano, Tucci tucks into caviar from farm-raised sturgeon; this may be the happiest he’s ever been on screen.
Few people have a better time eating than Tucci. And where better to experience this than Italy, as he introduces food beyond spaghetti and meatballs?
“A lot of what’s interesting about Italian cuisine is that it’s very quick,” he says. “There are some recipes where things are sort of slowly cooked, but for the most part, when you’re making an Italian meal, the majority of it is going to be over an open fire or on the stove. And I think that might have to do with needing to do things quickly before somebody else came in and invaded.”
Food, naturally, reveals countries’ histories and geography. “It’s a way of connecting not only to your family, but it’s a way of connecting to other cultures,” Tucci says. “But it also is a way of defining your identity.”
As delicious and varied as Italy’s food is, Tucci notes most dishes are relatively simple, cooked with just a few fresh, exquisite ingredients. As he visits different locales, Tucci explains how cuisines evolved. “We think of Florence as a very sort of wealthy city now, which it is, but if you look at the cuisine of Florence, it’s really poor food,” he says.
There, Tucci tries a local specialty, lampredotto, the fourth stomach of a cow, sold as street food. A fan of offal, he likes it. It’s a far cry from the street food where he grew up, just north of Manhattan. Now, Tucci lives in London with his wife, Felicity Blunt, and their children.
He credits his mom with being a fantastic cook. When he was a kid, his family spent a year in Florence, where his appreciation of Italy grew.
Tucci’s credits include starring in and directing on Broadway, co-writing and starring in “The Big Night,” and many films “(The Devil Wears Prada,” “Conclave”); he’s also voiced characters on TV (“BoJack Horseman” and “Central Park”). But hosting a series and being an executive producer is daunting.
“I was very uncomfortable when I first started doing this series five years ago, because I didn’t want to be myself,” he says. “That’s sort of the whole point of being an actor.”
Tucci insisted that the show’s focus remains on food and the people creating it ‒ not on him. The CNN series, welcomed during the pandemic, sparked a fan base.
“I wanted to do it because it made it made so many people happy,” Tucci says. “And it made people love food, and it made people want to come to Italy. It made people bring their kids to Italy and made people eat, have their kids try different foods, and that’s just cool.”
Tucci reflects on the finished series in a separate interview. “The hardest part is making sure that you’ve gotten the story truthfully, that you’re not making that person tell their story in a way that suits you or your show,” he says.
Let’s face it, it’s not as if Italian food needs an ambassador. Still, most folks don’t realize the depth of the cuisine. Tucci hopes that viewers will “see how complex and diverse Italy is and that it isn’t just pasta, pizza, and red sauce,” he says. “And that they see how the food has been so distinctly influenced by so many different factors, by invasion, religion, topography, climate, politics, all of it, and that when they go to Italy, they revel in that.”
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