Cocktail hour with Stanley Tucci

If there’s one thing to know about Stanley Tucci, it’s that the man loves pasta. Between his 2021 CNN series Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy and this year’s Tucci in Italy on National Geographic and Disney+, in which he explores his ancestral homeland (his grandparents emigrated to the US from Calabria), he has sampled rigatoni in Rome, pansotti in Liguria and bigoli in Veneto – and that’s just the beginning.

‘I'll eat pasta every day,’ Tucci says. On a week like this, with London basking in a heatwave, his go-to is spaghetti alle vongole – ‘which is perfect, light, satisfying’ – paired with salad: ‘You don’t need much more than that.’ The idea of cheese with the dish, however, leaves him cold: ‘That’s bad, very bad.’

Pasta may be Tucci’s number one, but there’s a close runner-up: oysters and a martini is, he says, ‘one of the best things in the world’. On the perennial debate of gin versus vodka, he’s torn. ‘I love gin,’ he reasons (we’re speaking in his capacity as an ambassador for Tanqueray No. Ten, which he describes as ‘incredibly versatile, not super juniper-y and very citrus-y, which makes it totally refreshing’). ‘But also, making a Vesper martini [gin, vodka and Lillet Blanc vermouth] is a really nice thing, too.

With World Martini Day impending (June 21), Tucci reminisces about a spot called Café Luxembourg on New York’s Upper West Side, which is still going today. ‘I used to go there when I had a little money and treat myself to a cocktail,’ he says. ‘As the years went on, I was finally able to afford to eat there, so that was nice.’

These were Tucci’s pre-Hollywood days, when he worked in restaurants to support his acting training. ‘I’ve always been interested in food and drink,’ he muses. ‘My parents were amazing cooks – my whole family, actually, on both sides. I learned how to bartend many years ago. I also worked in a kitchen as a prep chef, and was really fascinated by restaurant culture. That’s why my cousin and I wrote the movie Big Night.’

The 1996 film, which is about two Italian immigrant brothers running a struggling restaurant in 1950s New Jersey, is a love letter to food – and became the catalyst for Tucci’s career. He went on to star in hits such as The Devil Wears Prada (2006), The Lovely Bones (2009) and The Hunger Games franchise (2012–2015), becoming a household name.

A gourmet to his core, Tucci never left the world of food and drink behind. He was perfectly cast as chef Julia Child’s husband in 2009’s Julie & Julia. But it was perhaps in 2020, when he posted an Instagram video of himself making a negroni which promptly went viral (1.3 million views at the time of writing), that the public became, as he puts it ‘interested in my opinion about food and drink’. With Searching for Italy and Tucci in Italy, where the actor deep dives into regional specialties from lardo to limoncello, he has carved out a niche as something of a modern ambassador of la dolce vita. Think of him as an urbane Bourdain, with less swearing and more biscotti.

The first thing that Tucci does when he gets to a new filming location is ‘go find a great meal’, or, if he’s staying in an apartment rather than a hotel, ‘go grocery shopping and make a big pot of tomato sauce – marinara’. He is nothing if not consistent.

While filming his most recent series, he came across what he considers to be the most magical place he’s ever been (a considerable endorsement given the visual sumptuousness of his shows): Trentino-Alto Adige in the Italian Dolomites. ‘It’s one of the most beautiful places ever,' enthuses Tucci. 'And, because that area was controlled by the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the food is really interesting: different kinds of noodles – not really pasta in the traditional sense – polenta, root vegetables, meats, fresh water fish… More butter and less olive oil.’

There are plenty more gastronomic odysseys ahead – Tucci in Italy has just been renewed for a second season – but for this weekend, it’s Tanqueray at the Tuccis’.

Stanley Tucci celebrates World Martini Day with Tanqueray No. Ten and a limited drop of pre-batched martini cocktails, inspired by his own recipe. Follow the link to be in with a chance of receiving one of the limited edition bottles.