Opening Shot: \u201c\u2018See Naples and die.\u2019 So said Goethe in the 1700s.\u201d Stanley Tucci stands in front of a tomb that contains neatly stacked human skulls and bones. \u201cMany people took him literally. Forty thousand of them are buried in the catacombs underneath the city.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Gist:\u00a0Tucci has visited some of the Season 2 destinations in past episodes of this series and his old CNN series, Stanley Tucci: Searching For Italy<\/a>, but each region has multiple episodes\u2019 worth of food culture to explore.<\/p>\n Take the first episode, where he visits the city of Naples and other spots in the Campania region. He doesn\u2019t talk about the city\u2019s most famous food export, Neopolitan pizza, in this episode because he covered that in his CNN series. Here, he goes to Mim\u00ec alla Ferrovia, a restaurant that has been open for over 80 years, to have another famous Neopolitan export: eggplant parmigiana. But it doesn\u2019t look like the breaded, cheese-covered parmigiana you see in the U.S.; it\u2019s a layered dish, with thin slices of eggplant acting like lasagna noodles.<\/p>\n Naples is close to Mount Vesuvius, and Tucci emphasizes how the cities and towns at the foot of the volcano have a bit of a devil-may-care viewpoint, given that Vesuvius could blow at any time. He goes to the town of Gragnano, known for its dried pasta, and eats a pasta dish that is cooked in a huge pan with moss-covered ocean rocks. He then goes to the island of Procida and sees the \u201cbread lemons\u201d that are grown there. <\/p>\n At a tomato farm in Ercolado, he talks to the co-owner, an immigrant who went on strike to improve the pay and conditions farm laborers were working under. In Paestum, in the southern part of the region, he finds out why buffalo mozzarella and other buffalo milk products are so revered. Finally, in the Benevento province in the northern part of the region, he talks to two vineyard owners who have created a revered white wine from a grape varietal that used to be considered too bitter.<\/p>\n What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Aside from the aforementioned Stanley Tucci: Searching For Italy, Tucci In Italy is very much in the vein of other food-oriented travel shows, like\u00a0Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0Taste The Nation With Padma Lakshmi<\/a>.<\/p>\n Our Take: We\u2019ve come around a bit on Stanley Tucci as a travel show host. On both of his Italy-based series, we criticized how detached he was, and how he didn\u2019t really connect with the people he talked to. But we\u2019ve come to realize that it\u2019s a feature of his style, not a bug, though we did wish at times he was a bit warmer of an on-screen presence.<\/p>\n You can definitely see Tucci\u2019s passion for Italy, his ancestral home and where he and his family lived for a few years when he was a kid, and how the food culture permeates how Italians live, work and relate to each other. And the fact that he can converse with people in Italian helps show his connection to the settings he\u2019s in, because he\u2019s not speaking to people through an interpreter or on-camera fixer.<\/p>\n We\u2019re particularly looking forward to episodes where he brings on his wife, Felicity Blunt. Seeing the two of them together makes Tucci look more human and down-to-earth. But one other thing that makes him more down-to-earth is how he eats.<\/p>\n Hear us out on this one! Tucci takes huge bites of food when he tastes chefs\u2019 creations; he loads his fork up with a huge twirl of spaghetti more than once. When he tries a buffalo cheese-heavy dish in Paestum, his mouth is covered in cheese. As erudite and detached as Tucci can seem, it\u2019s heartening to see him have no compunction to making a mess of eating on camera.<\/p>\n Performance Worth Watching: Given how we seemed to have affection for the way Tucci eats, we\u2019ll give this to him.<\/p>\n Sex And Skin: Besides sexy food shots, there\u2019s nothing.<\/p>\n Parting Shot: Loving shots of Naples and the area around Mt. Vesuvius. \u201cThe fact that Campania\u2019s food is eaten all over the world is a sign that great challenges can yield great results.\u201d<\/p>\n Sleeper Star: The loving shots of Campania are thanks to Matt Ball, the show\u2019s director of photography.<\/p>\n Most Pilot-y Line: Trying to figure out Tucci\u2019s tells about whether he really loves a dish or not, we think we\u2019ve figured it out: If he says, \u201cWow!\u201d he really loved it. If he says, \u201cIt\u2019s amazing,\u201d he probably only liked it.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\tGet your guide to the best movies and shows streaming\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for Decider Digest for news and recommendations for Netflix, Disney+, Hulu, and more!\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\tThank you for signing up!\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n Our Call: STREAM IT. We\u2019ve recommended Tucci\u2019s travel shows in the past more for the visuals and the passion he brings than any particular connection he has to the people he visits. But the second season of Tucci In Italy made us realize what Tucci is actually connecting with is the food and culture, and that helps us like him better.<\/p>\n Photo: National Geographic<\/p>\n
Photo: Matt Holyoak\/National Geographic<\/p>\n