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Shaking things up: Stanley Tucci talks cocktails, cooking and his love for London’s food scene
By Michelle Johnson | 23 August 2024 | Culture, Food & Drink
Stanley Tucci shares his passion for cocktails and cooking — and tells us why London’s food scene is firmly on his radar
Actor Stanley Tucci is one of Hollywood’s favourite character actors, playing a variety of personalities on film and TV — from villainous to vaudevillian, heartbreaking to hilarious. But the American star’s fame shot to new heights when he began sharing his passion for cocktails and cooking on social media just a few years ago.
Now, Stanley compliments his acting with award-nominated food documentaries, his own luxury cookware range and, of course, his latest partnership with Tanqueray No Ten.
“I like to work,” he says, with understatement. “These are all things that I’ve always been really interested in: playing different characters, cocktails, food. So, for me, it’s been a question of how can I take that love I have and turn it into something that, ultimately, ends up being a form of entertainment?
“But it also enhances my life and lets me explore all those things I’m interested in, in a deeper way,” he adds. “If you love something, people see that.”
And this is certainly true of Stanley’s growing reputation as a cocktail connoisseur.
“I’ve always loved cocktails and I love the idea of promoting cocktail culture,” says Stanley, who has held the role of global ambassador for Tanqueray No Ten since 2021. “I’ve always loved Tanqueray. It’s this ubiquitous spirit; it’s been around forever. I remember my parents enjoying Tanqueray and tonic with my aunts and uncles in the summer.”
In April, The Lovely Bones and Spotlight actor teamed up with the fine gin-makers to launch a new series of cocktails residencies, starting with director of mixology Ago Perrone at London’s The Connaught Bar. Together, Stanley and Ago — who first met when the actor attended a ‘guest shift’ to learn from the martini master — have collaborated to create a cocktail experience at the London bar that includes a bespoke Tanqueray No Ten cocktail, inspired by the negroni and the martini, and which can be adapted to guest’s individual preferences.
“It’s been a really exciting project,” says Stanley. “Our cocktail can be tailored to guests’ personal tastes. It’s important because some gins or some scotches, they are what they are, and you can’t play around with them a lot. A really peaty scotch, for example. I happen to not really care for really peaty scotches, and it’s the same with some gin, which, to me, can be a little too harsh or juniper-forward.”
“Tanqueray No Ten is so sophisticated and its flavours are really malleable. I really like it on its own, but you can also play with it a lot and do so many different things with it. It can be whatever you want it to be,” he says, before revealing his favourite serve: “I love a very simple dry martini, straight up. That’s all I need.”
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GLOBAL GASTRONOMY
Stanley credits his love of cocktails and food to his family. Born to parents Joan and Stanley Sr in 1960, the actor grew up in Westchester County, New York, with a family that celebrated their Calabrian Italian heritage.
“Food is just everything to my family — as with many Italian families,” he says. “But I have to say, I’ve eaten in a lot of Italian homes and none of them have compared to what I ate in my own home or in my grandparents’ homes. I could say: ‘Oh, it’s because of the people’, but that’s not true. It’s actually because of the taste. The people help, but it’s really because of the taste.”
“Growing up in the 1960s, things were more formal — it was only later that [society] started to become more casual — and so my father, when he was an art teacher, he went to school in a suit and tie every day and had a cocktail when he came home. Those were still the traditions that you stuck to,” he says.
“I also grew up watching a lot of old movies when I was young — movies from the 30s, ’40s, ’50s — and I loved the elegance in the way people dressed, the way they talked. And I loved the way they had cocktails. I thought it was so cool; it was glamorous, exciting. You were poised and sophisticated — or at least you thought you were — if you had a martini in your hand.”
Stanley celebrated his love of Italian food in the 2021-2022 Emmy-winning documentary Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy. In the hit series, Stanley travelled across the country to discover the delights of its variety of regional delicacies. But if the world were his oyster, are there any other global gastronomic destinations that he would love to explore?
“You know, because I’m in London, I’ve become really interested in British cuisine,” he says of his adopted home — Stanley’s wife, Felicity Blunt, is an English literary agent (and the sister of his The Devil Wears Prada co-star, Emily Blunt).
“London has become a food mecca — it might be the most exciting place for world cuisines.” This may seem a surprising answer when one considers the less-than-favourable reputation that British cuisine has long held among our European peers, but as Stanley expounds upon the capital’s distinct and unique history in relation to the British Empire, which reached its peak of power and influence between 1815-1915, the impressive gastronomic influences that underpin today’s food scene become clear.
“English cuisine is so interesting to me. Many major cities, certainly western cities, don’t have such a varied food history. But London’s is so varied because of the many colonies [of the British Empire).” he says. “When you consider that most countries have the food they do because of the countries that invaded them — I think that Italy is an amalgam of Greek, African, Middle Eastern, Austrian, French and Spanish cuisine — but English cuisine is an amalgam of the world, because Britain invaded other countries, and took [cuisines] back home. And then, of course, those people from former colonies came to the UK] and set up shop, as it were.”
“Today, if you look at the food scene and the cocktail scene in London, there’s nothing like it. It’s come on in leaps and bounds even since I moved here — certainly since I first came here over 20 years ago,” he says. “Cocktails fell out of favour for a while, but now they’re back with a vengeance — and I’m glad because, I think, it’s just so cool.”
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TREADING THE BOARDS
Future projects on the agenda for the multi talented actor include a new docuseries, which will see Stanley return to Italy, and filming the second series of spy thriller Citadel for Amazon Prime Video. After that, Stanley says, “I don’t know what will happen”.
“There are movies I want to do, but I never want to be pigeonholed, especially now that I’m older and I’ve proven that I can do different things. I like making independent movies as well as the big Hollywood movies,” he says. “To me, it’s interesting to just shake things up all the time. You know, you enter into a world of acting or filmmaking because you don’t want a nine-to-five job — you want to be creative. So, if you were to go into this profession and just end up doing the same thing over and over again, it’s like, what’s the point?”
One area that Stanley is keen to explore is theatre. “I’d like to direct theatre again. I’m really yearning to do that — I just have to find the right time and play. I’ve been talking to some people and would like to do that next year [2025],” he says. “Of course, every time you do something like that, you have to go and do something else that will make money. But that’s the way it’s always been.”
“I’ll do an independent movie because I love it, and it’s fine that you’re going to lose money to do it, because you’re telling a story that you want to tell… but then you have to balance it with a blockbuster,” he laughs.