It’s Sunday lunch in the remote mountain village of Senarica, and chef Danilo Cortellini has invited Stanley Tucci to join his family for a traditional timballo feast. In the kitchen, Cortellini’s mother, Lucia, is at the stove, expertly pouring delicate crepes — or crespelle — into a pan. The dish was born of French influence, tweaked during the Napoleonic invasion with water in place of milk and olive oil instead of butter. But the real reason Lucia’s making them? “His mother, Lucia, doesn’t trust him with today’s lunch,” Tucci deadpans in the voiceover of his new National Geographic series, “Tucci in Italy.”
Which is saying something, given that Cortellini has been a chef for 25 years, including more than a decade as head chef at the Italian Embassy in London.
Tucci watches with equal parts reverence and amusement as Lucia builds the showstopper: layers of crespelle, ragù, tiny meatballs and cheese, each crepe brushed with egg wash so it soufflés ever so slightly in the oven.
“One of the reasons I wanted to do this story was because my family makes this — what we call timpano,” Tucci tells Cortellini. “It’s round. It has a dough on the outside, almost like a pizza dough, kind of like, ish, thing. Inside is pasta and meatballs and salami. And then baked. And then, like with this,” he pauses, gently turning his hands, “flipped.”
This is the opening scene of the “Abruzzo” episode — and a fitting emotional center for the series as a whole. “Tucci in Italy” is a five-part journey through breathtaking landscapes, rich culinary traditions and the intimate cultural histories that shape Italian identity, region by region. But when we spoke via Zoom ahead of the show’s release, this dish — and this moment — is what Tucci kept circling back to.
“I really felt connected to Danilo’s story,” he said. “He’s so articulate, in both Italian and English, and here’s a guy who still returns to his roots. He lives there. He spent years in London, was the chef at the Italian Embassy and yet he’s drawn back to his hometown. And he won’t even step on his mother’s toes when she makes the dish — he knows she won’t let him, and I love that.”
When asked what dish from filming the season he’d most like to recreate, he referred again to being in Danilo’s kitchen: “I liked that timballo they made in Abruzzo with the crepes,” he said. “I thought that was really interesting. I’d like to try that one myself.”
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When watching, if this timballo moment feels a little cinematic, it’s because it is. Not in the sense of staging or performance, but in the way it completes a circle that began nearly three decades ago with “Big Night.”
In that 1996 cult classic — which Tucci co-wrote, co-directed, and starred in — a struggling Italian restaurant prepares a once-in-a-lifetime feast to impress a rumored VIP guest. At the center of that deliriously hopeful dinner is the aforementioned timpano: a hulking, drum-shaped marvel filled with layers of pasta, meatballs, salami, hard-boiled eggs, cheese and ragù. Its unveiling is a near-religious experience.
The dish became a symbol of love, ambition, and immigrant hunger — for both belonging and excellence. And over time, “Big Night’s” timpano grew into something larger: a pop culture touchstone, a Tucci family legend, a viral recipe.
But here in Senarica, that spirit returns in a quieter, more intimate register.
There’s no “Big Night” talk in the show. Tucci doesn’t bring it up. Not in the “Abruzzo” episode, not even in our interview. And that silence speaks volumes. About the kind of show Tucci in Italy is, yes, but also about the kind of celebrity host Tucci chooses to be.
“Big Night” is a cult classic among food lovers — a film that captures the ache and beauty of pre–Food Network restaurant life, before chefs were lauded, at least in some circles, as culinary rockstars. It’s about ambition, hunger, the art of feeding people who might not be able to name what they’ve just eaten. Fiction, but suffused with reverence. You can feel it in the food and in the way the camera holds on it.
Tucci could have indulged in a little nostalgia here. The film turns 30 next year, after all; no one would’ve blinked at a winking callback, a recreated timpano moment, even just a nostalgic insert shot. But he doesn’t take the bait. Instead, he holds the frame steady — and gives the moment to Danilo and Lucia. The timballo is served at Sunday lunch, unceremoniously. No big reveal. Just wine, layered crepes and a conversation about how cars didn’t reach this remote corner of Abruzzo until after World War II.
"It’s not about me. It’s about letting the stories tell themselves. The people have to tell their stories. I can’t impose anything. My job is to say, 'We found this story. We think it’s interesting. Now — tell us yours.'"
It’s a sharp contrast to the food media era we’re just now emerging from — one obsessed with celebrities who couldn’t cook, but cooked anyway. Ludacris had a show, fittingly called “Luda Can’t Cook.” So did Paris Hilton, whose short-lived Netflix series was spun from a pandemic YouTube channel where she made something called “Sliving Lasagna.” (A portmanteau of “slaying” and “living,” naturally.) Her tips veered toward glittery chaos: sunglasses in the kitchen, salt removed with a paper towel, garlic conspicuously absent. Camp-adjacent, sure. But mostly spectacle.
Tucci could have made this moment about him. He doesn’t. And in that restraint, something more generous takes shape — a quiet trust in the material, and in the people living it. Like the dish itself, the moment doesn’t demand applause. It simply offers itself.
“For me to tell these stories properly, it’s not about spectacle,” Tucci told me. “It’s not ‘Hey, let me show you Stanley trying to ride a horse or roll tortellini.’ Every now and then I’ll try something like that, but that’s not the point of the show. It’s not about me. It’s about letting the stories tell themselves. The people have to tell their stories. I can’t impose anything. My job is to say, ‘We found this story. We think it’s interesting. Now — tell us yours.’"
And in a quiet twist of fate, it was announced earlier this week that Tucci’s co-star and fictional brother from the film, Tony Shalhoub, is preparing to host his own food show, too. “Tony Shalhoub: Breaking Bread” will premiere this fall on CNN, centered around travel, hospitality and the comforting universality of — you guessed it — bread.
It’s impossible not to think of “Big Night’s” final scene: no music, no monologue, just the brothers in the kitchen, silently sharing a loaf and some eggs. It was a moment that said everything about hunger, forgiveness and love — without saying a word. Now, nearly three decades later, both men are still feeding us, still finding meaning in the simplest rituals. Still, somehow, breaking bread.
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