Stanley Tucci Breaks His Own Rule of Not Exposing Restaurants He Dislikes by Roasting Olive Garden: 'I Still Bear the Scars'

Tucci also said that a litmus test for a good Italian restaurant is whether they have a good risotto

NEED TO KNOW

• Stanley Tucci roasted Olive Garden, where he ate once years ago while filming in Salt Lake City
• The actor also shared a way to evaluate the quality of an Italian restaurant
• Season 2 of Tucci’s show exploring food and culture in Italy, Tucci in Italy, premieres May 11 on National Geographic

Stanley Tucci is not a fan of Olive Garden (to say the least!)

The actor, 65, did not hold back when discussing his one experience at the fast-casual chain in a conversation with Josh Horowitz, host of the Happy Sad Confused podcast, at the 92nd Street Y in New York City on Tuesday, May 5.

The topic came up when Horowitz asked Tucci what dish an Italian restaurant needs “to do right in order to pass the Stanley Tucci test."

“Every dish,” Tucci said, before adding that he thinks risotto is the marker of a proficient spot because of its level of difficulty. 

“I think one of the most difficult dishes to make is a risotto, right, in any form,” he said. “If a restaurant can make a good risotto, it means that they can usually make everything else pretty well.”

“Have you ever been to an Olive Garden?” Horowitz prompted. 

Tucci replied that he had, when he was making a film years ago in Salt Lake City, Utah, and he didn't know where to eat.

“I went to that place,” he said, refraining from even saying the name of the restaurant. “I still bear the scars.”

“Look, in the books I've written, if I go to a restaurant, I don't like it, I never name it, I never anything, but come on, really?” he said.

Horowitz brought up the endless breadstick offering at the Italian restaurant, and Tucci simply replied, “Yep.”

“Lost one endorsement deal,” Horowitz said. 

Tucci seemed unaffected. 

“Yes, I know. Yeah. Yeah,” he said. 

The Devil Wears Prada 2 star also revealed in the conversation that he has received many offers to appear on cooking shows, and he has turned all of them down. 

“I don't like competition when it comes to art or food," Tucci said, laughing. "I think it's silly. I know they're hugely successful, but I just find it false and weird."

"To me, cooking is the opposite of that. It should be a thing that brings people together, not separates them. A thing that allows for communion, not for competition," he said.

Tucci's new season of his show Tucci in Italy will show him continuing “to trace the link between Italy's historical landscape and its culinary traditions,” according to a synopsis. He will visit Naples and Campania, Sicily, Le Marche, Sardinia and Veneto.

"In Italy, food is never just food. It's memory, identity and, sometimes, a full-blown argument," Tucci said of the experience filming the show.

He told Horowitz his journey in Italy was “incredible,” adding that he loved living there when he was 12 and 13.

"It was life changing and that, without question, informed how I saw the world and what kind of world I wanted to live in," he said. 

"I realized as I got older and I traveled to Europe that I felt more comfortable in Europe than I did living in America,” he added. “There is something truly — I hate to use the word, but magical about Italy, and those people who have survived countless invasions, countless corrupt inept governments and yet they persevere.”

The National Geographic Emmy-nominated series Tucci in Italy will return with season 2 on the network on May 11 at 9 p.m. All episodes will be available to stream on Disney+ and Hulu on May 12.

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