I love Italian food, and I love food writing and TV programmes, so you might think I’d love Stanley Tucci. And yet I find him creepy and his recipes are rubbish. I can’t be the only one. The actor, who I first saw in the brilliant film Big Night, about a Jersey Shore Italian-American restaurant, is probably best known for The Devil Wears Prada, a film I adore. His character in that film did wind me up, but it took a while before Tucci himself got on my nerves. I suppose it began with him coming over all cheffy, like he’s the new Anthony Bourdain.
Who cares what Colin Firth eats when he’s round at the Tucci gaff?
I kept being told to watch his TV series where he travels around Italy, but the sight of his smug face on my screen turned out to be more than I could bear. Tucci has a new book out, What I Ate in One Year, and he is basically all over everywhere. Yet in that book, according to one reviewer, he name-drops all over the shop about famous friends of his that come to his home for dinner. Who cares what Colin Firth eats when he’s round at the Tucci gaff? I really don’t want to know about Harry Styles’s favourite risotto.
The fact that he’s a massive show-off doesn’t surprise me at all, given that he has posted a video of himself hoovering after a New Year’s Eve party at his swanky London home – thus ensuring we saw loads of his immaculate home, including a booze stash to rival the Savoy Hotel’s American Bar. Which presumably was the point.
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And what on earth was the big deal about him mixing a Negroni during lockdown? He made it in a cocktail shaker and served it straight up in a martini glass… unforgivable. His measures were all wrong and he even suggested replacing the gin with vodka. Plus, he looked so pleased with himself. Another thing I find difficult to stomach is the way he parades around in a tight, short-sleeved T-shirt, advertising the fact that he’s a gym-goer. He probably bores people to death with his recipes while on the treadmill.
Tucci has, however, successfully positioned himself as an expert on all things Italian cuisine. He has an award-winning CNN food and travel show, Searching for Italy, a bestselling memoir, Taste: My Life Through Food, and a cookware line supposedly based on the pots and pans his mother used when he was growing up.
He’s supposed to be the best-dressed man on TV, but what on earth was with those tight, white, high-waisted jeans he was wearing in Italy? And in the baking heat, a button-down shirt? Why would you do that when you’re eating a load of pasta? He must have been carting replacement shirts around with him. And he doesn’t really eat on his programme, going no further than nibbling a tiny amount, then immediately setting his facial expression to ‘this is the best thing I’ve ever tasted’.
His recipes, as I say, are awful. Courgette spaghetti? An oily, congealed mess. His pronunciation of the word mozzarella is more Italian than the way actual Italians pronounce it, even though… isn’t he third generation?
When he talks about food, he is pompous, pretentious and on the verge of arrogance. The Italians I know see him as an unbearable American who is trying to out-Italy them. He is not a professional chef – so why does he come across so authoritatively? According to Buzzfeed, someone who worked at a restaurant where Tucci dined claimed he tipped less than 10 per cent on a $500 bill – and that this was not the first time. Get over your crush on Tucci, and look behind his self-promotion. This is a man who should stick to acting.
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