Stanley Tucci Takes His Food Show to the UK

Why Tucci wants to explore British food

Tucci said he chose the UK because its food culture extends well beyond expensive London dining rooms. He pointed to seafood, meat, produce and the people whose livelihoods depend on making those ingredients exceptional.

“I wanted to do the U.K. because I just feel like there’s so much here,” he said. “I’m not just talking about fancy restaurants and all that. I’m talking about the U.K. as a whole.”

His interests include fishermen, lobster crews, pig farmers, home cooks and chefs committed to local sourcing. That emphasis suggests the production may look beyond London and into Britain’s regional fishing, livestock and farm-to-fork economies, though no specific filming locations have been confirmed.

Tucci also cited London being named the world’s best food destination. That claim comes from Tripadvisor’s 2026 Travellers’ Choice awards, which placed the city first using 12 months of traveler-review data. The ranking is not universal. A Time Out survey put London fourth among global food cities, because even international culinary authority depends on which spreadsheet is being consulted.

For Tucci, rankings appear less important than the people doing the work. He described meeting chefs, farmers, cheesemakers and home cooks as “a great honor,” praising the singular devotion many bring to their craft.

What happens to the Italy-based franchise?

The completed second season of Tucci in Italy remains entirely focused on Italy. Disney announced the season in April, and its five episodes were released on May 12, covering Naples and Campania, Sicily, Le Marche, Sardinia and Veneto.

The program earned 2026 Emmy nominations for outstanding hosted nonfiction series or special and for sound mixing. Tucci is nominated in his roles as host and executive producer.

Official National Geographic materials still call the series Tucci in Italy. It is therefore unclear whether the British production will become another season under that name, receive a new title or launch as a separate Tucci-led travel series. Moving an explicitly Italian brand to Britain creates a fairly obvious naming problem, but no solution has been made public.

The broader format has already survived one major institutional change. It began as CNN’s 14-episode Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy, which won the hosted-nonfiction Emmy three times. CNN canceled the series in December 2022 as the network withdrew from externally produced original programming, despite describing it as one of its most successful originals.

National Geographic later revived the concept with BBC Studios and SALT Productions. Tucci previously told Town & Country that the new home allowed the team to slow down and explore its subjects more deeply.

Hosting required Tucci to learn a different skill

Tucci first imagined an Italy series around 20 years ago. His idea was to travel through the country region by region, showing how food, landscape and local history shape each other. Early pitches went nowhere.

Six or seven years ago, CNN asked whether he had television ideas. He offered three: one about refugees and food, another examining standard and alternative cancer treatments, and the regional journey through Italy. The first two did not attract much enthusiasm. The third finally did.

Presenting the show was less natural than developing it. Tucci knew how to memorize dialogue and improvise with trained actors, but speaking on camera with people who were not performers initially made him nervous.

“What am I doing? I don’t know how to do this,” he remembered thinking during the early production. Experience helped, but his central lesson was simple: listen closely.

“If you’re not listening in the scene and responding truthfully, it’s not going to work,” he said.

That matters because the emotional core of these programs is not merely Tucci eating attractively photographed meals. It is the trust he builds with people whose work is often rooted in family, place and years of repetition. Producer Francesco Ficarra has said Tucci is frequently recognized during filming, which can make natural encounters harder to preserve.

Italy still holds his attention

A British installment does not mean Tucci has exhausted Italy. Asked which Italian region remains underrated, he chose Le Marche, on the Adriatic side of central Italy beside Tuscany.

He praised its coastline, food, relative affordability and smaller tourist crowds, before acknowledging that recommending it could help change the last of those qualities.

“I shouldn’t even be saying this because I know that people will go to it,” he said. “But it’s a really beautiful region.”

Le Marche also appeared in the second season of Tucci in Italy, giving the series room to explore a place less internationally marketed than Tuscany or Sicily. That attention reflects why audiences have connected with the franchise. Food provides the entry point, but regional identity and the lives behind each dish give the episodes their weight.

The shift to Britain could test whether viewers are following Italy itself or Tucci’s way of meeting people. His comments suggest he is betting on the latter, while keeping the same focus on skilled producers and local traditions.

Tucci is also trying to protect time at home

The UK production arrives while Tucci remains busy as an actor, including work connected to The Devil Wears Prada 2. He said he is pleased to have so much to do, but increasingly aware that a full schedule has a cost.

“At the age of almost 66, I think, ‘How long can I do this?’” he said.

He wants to spend more time at home while continuing to act, tell stories, make films and direct plays. Filming a travel project in the country where he lives may help him find that balance without giving up the work he still cares about.

That concern gives the geographic change a more personal purpose. The series may be expanding beyond Italy, but Tucci is also attempting to bring his career closer to his daily life.

His own career began on Broadway in 1982, shortly after he graduated from SUNY Purchase. He appeared with childhood friend Campbell Scott in The Queen and the Rebels, directed by Scott’s mother. The job paid $550 a week and secured Tucci an Equity card, health insurance and an agent, a substantial start for a new actor.

What Tucci revealed away from the table

In a quick questionnaire, Tucci shared a few details that were less culinary, though food was never very far away:

• His childhood nickname was “Tooch.”
• He loved Velveeta as a child but no longer understands the appeal.
• He sings “Our Love Is Here to Stay” in the shower and used to sing it to his children at bedtime.
• His alternate title for the series was the deliberately unimpressive Tucci Eats Italy.
• He considers drawing and painting hidden talents.
• He rarely eats ice cream, but would choose chocolate.
• The object he would not want to live without is a chef’s knife.
• He wishes he could have joined the cast of The Wild Wild West.

Tucci also recalled playing Dr. Abraham Erskine in Captain America: The First Avenger. Although the script described a German scientist in his 70s when Tucci was about 50, he said the role became one of his best professional experiences.

The advice he still carries comes from acting teacher George Morrison, who told him to “go beyond what’s comfortable,” and from his father and artist Alberto Giacometti: “The undoing of something is as important as the doing of it.”

Taking an Emmy-recognized Italian series into Britain certainly qualifies as moving beyond the comfortable. Whether it becomes a renamed show, a separate project or an unusually broad interpretation of Tucci in Italy is now the unanswered part.