In the past five years, Stanley Tucci has become a kind of unexpected cultural ambassador for Italy.
It’s a role that he fell into but accepted with a joyful passion. Before 2020, Tucci was almost exclusively known for his prolific career as an actor in films like Spotlight, The Devil Wears Prada, and Big Night. But after a viral video of him making a Negroni (a cocktail made with gin, vermouth, and Campari) at home during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns of 2020, Tucci became the internet’s culinary darling. He began posting charming home-cooking videos to his Instagram account, which created a fervor among foodies. At that point in time, it seemed everybody wanted to watch Stanley Tucci eat.
Tucci’s passion for sharing gastronomic delights with his audience took him all the way to Italy, his ancestral homeland. In the CNN original documentary Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy, Tucci went on an 18-episode journey of eating his way through Italy’s culinary landscape.
Along the way, he also shed light on complex cultural and political issues such as immigration, Italy’s North-South divide, and climate change, all while connecting them back to the country’s gastronomic spoils. That project has reached its end, but Tucci is still searching for ways to highlight authentic narratives about Italian culture.
This search put Tucci on a journey that spans several countries, restaurants, and communities across the globe. Now, he’s giving us a glimpse into that story. His latest book, What I Ate in One Year (Gallery Books), which will be released October 15, chronicles what his year of culinary exploits looked—and tasted—like.
And on November 11, Tucci is unveiling yet another food-focused exploit: The actor-turned-cooking star will release his third holiday collaboration with S.Pellegrino, this time spotlighting his love for his favorite cheeses. Officially known as the S.Pellegrino & Stanley Tucci’s Holiday Cheese “Cake,” this collaboration is a savory holiday cheese assortment that features a creamy La Tur, a smooth mini Brie, a buttery Cave Aged Reserve Cornelia, and a zesty Buonatavola provolone, all sourced from Murray’s Cheese in New York City, one of his favorite cheese shops in the world.
I spoke with Tucci about how his travels have inspired his latest projects.
This interview was edited for clarity and space.
Let’s begin with some of your travel habits.
Well, one: I overpack, ’cause I like to have options. And also, when you live in England, which I do, you never know what the weather’s going to be. So if we’re going out to rent a house in the country or down in Cornwall or something, you literally have to bring enough clothing for each season at once. . . . So you have to pack a lot of stuff.
You’ve traveled a ton in the past year while writing your forthcoming book, What I Ate in One Year. How do you pick where you eat when you travel?
I usually try to ask locals. You can ask the concierge at your hotel, but a lot of times they’re going to give you a restaurant that their friend owns or something.
Nowadays, there are so many [ways] with social media and everything like that. You can find stuff very quickly. My wife usually does incredible amounts of research before we go anywhere, and she has them all picked out and books them. Which is great because I’m the kind of guy who goes, “Oh, God, I gotta go to dinner,” you know, and then I figure it out. . . . But I’m more spontaneous about it, I suppose.
What were some of the best restaurants you ate at while writing What I Ate in One Year?
For me, a place like Pommidoro in Rome . . . I [also] love the River Cafe in London.
If I wrote about a restaurant that I didn’t like in the book, I would never name it. I think that’d be wrong. That’s not my job to do that. I only named the ones that I liked.
How does traveling the world for food bring you closer to the communities that you visit?
Well, I think food is probably the greatest sort of bridge between people. It’s the easiest because we all need it and we all want it, and it breaks down barriers instantly. It creates a place for communication and communion. People talk to each other more easily over a plate of food or a bottle of wine.
You’ve put a ton of smaller and under-touristed areas of Italy on a massive platform. How do you choose the travel destinations that you highlight in your work?
It’s about the stories. We get a whole bunch of stories from the researchers who work on the show.
I will [also] say, “Okay, if we’re going to be in this region, I want to go to this place that I went to one time and film there because the pasta there or the guy there is really interesting, or they do a dish there that nobody else does.”
So between my suggestions and the wonderful researchers that we have, we come up with different stories. Sometimes you might have two stories that are really good, but you can’t do them both because they’re too similar . . . so you kind of want to change it up a little bit so that you’re not like, “Oh, this whole thing is just pasta.”
Based on your travels, what under-touristed or off-the-beaten-path spot in Italy would you recommend?
I don’t know how under-traveled it is—in the winter, a lot of people go there—but I think that the Italian Alps and the Dolomites are just some of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been. You’re getting a mix of two distinctly different cultures, which is Austrian and Italian. Amazing food, amazing people, incredible landscapes. It’s gorgeous.
So I hear that cheese is your desert-island food, and I need to know: Where are your favorite spots across the world to get cheese?
[Laughs] In New York, you have Murray’s Cheese Shop [and] you got Citarella.
In London, there’s the Fromagerie. It’s kind of amazing: A lot of the grocery stores [in London] will have a really great cheese selection, too. The British love cheese.
In France, there’s the Le Bon Marché with walls of cheese.
And in Italy, anywhere! You go to a supermarket in Italy, and the number of cheeses are incredible, including fresh sheep’s milk ricotta, which is probably one of the greatest things in the world.
I’m always kind of seeking [cheese] out wherever I go.
Speaking of cheese, what should people expect from your new collaboration with S.Pellegrino?
I love collaborating with San Pellegrino. They’re really fun. . . . You know, I’ve been drinking San Pellegrino for years and years and years. And then they came to me and said, “Would you be interested in working with us?” And I was like, “Yeah, it’s great stuff.”
And I drink it all the time because it tastes really good. It has this saltiness to it, which I really love. And then, coupled with the cheeses! This is the third year where we’ve done a sort of basket of food coupled with a bottle of S. Pellegrino. We talked about cheese this year and we came up with this idea and this package.
