Tucci In Italy is more or less a continuation of Stanley Tucci’s CNN travel series Stanley Tucci: Searching For Italy. He continues to visit different regions of his ancestral home, talking to chefs and other people who contribute to the food culture of a particular region. In the five episodes in this season of the show, Tucci visits Tuscany, Lombardy, Trentino-Alto Adige, Abruzzo and Lazio.
Opening Shot: A windy mountain range that yields white marble. Stanley Tucci walks on a ridge and quotes Michelangelo: “I saw the angel in the marble, and I carved until I set it free.”
The Gist: In Tuscany, Tucci starts with Florence, the city many think is Italy’s food and culture capital. He tries lampredotto, which is essentially beef intestines, which Florentines often eat on a roll for breakfast(!). Then goes to Dalla Lola, a restaurant specializing in peasant recipes that Florence’s working class used to make and eat all the time, including a dish called “fake tripe.”
He then travels to Colonnata, known for its impeccable marble, but also one of the best places to get lardo, which is aged pork fatback. He then goes to Maremma, “the “Wild West” of “Italy’s Wild West,” visiting with cattle ranchers called Butteri, who manage herds of free-range cattle that produce low-fat, very tender steaks, which Tucci helps the lead buttero grill.
Back in Florence, Tucci eats at an Asian-influenced restaurant that adheres to the city’s arcane restaurant rules as far as sourcing of ingredients are concerned, but definitely goes a different way than the usual. Then he goes to Siena, where he observes the mass feasts that happen all over the city during the twice-per-year Palio di Siena.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? As we mentioned, Tucci In Italy is pretty much a continuation of the 2021-22 CNN/BBC series Stanley Tucci: Searching For Italy. It’s very much in the vein of other food-oriented travel shows, like Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown or Taste The Nation With Padma Lakshmi.
Our Take: Despite a couple of years’ break and a switch of networks, Tucci In Italy doesn’t try to give us anything more than the previous show did, which is Stanley Tucci walking through various places in Italy, where his family was from and where he lived for a time when he was a kid. He is his usual wry and erudite self, enjoying all sorts of food, speaking Italian to the people that are featured in a segment, and muses about the marriage of food and culture in his voice overs.
What we thought about all this four years ago, when the original show debuted, really hasn’t changed: Tucci isn’t quite as personable a narrator as Bourdain or Lakshmi is, and he tends to observe rather than connect with the people he talks to. He definitely can lead towards pretentiousness at times.
But he also shows so much passion for his family’s homeland, and a fascination with each region’s food culture, especially restaurants and dishes that go against the norms of what a tourist might eat when he or she goes to Italy on vacation. So, if there are moments where, for instance, he seems a bit detached when the owner of a local marble mine talks to him about the history of mining in his town, we’re figuring he’s just thinking about the food he’s going to be eating later.
Sex and Skin: None, except for sexy shots of food.
Parting Shot: An overview of thousands of people sitting at long tables for the communal dinners during the Palio de Siena.
Sleeper Star: In a show like this, the director of photography is the sleeper star, because of all the inviting scenery they shoot. In this episode, the DP is Matt Ball.
Most Pilot-y Line: Tucci says “Wow” a lot when he eats something he loves, though at times we wish he said something like, “Damn, that’s good!” or something equally enthusiastic.
Our Call: STREAM IT. Stanley Tucci isn’t exactly the most relatable or warm presence as a travel host, but he is thorough, and Tucci In Italy is a good continuation of the journey through the country that he started on CNN in 2021.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.