Stanley Tucci has played a range of characters, from a fashion editor (The Devil Wears Prada) to a serial killer (The Lovely Bones), but this past year he has delighted audiences like never before by playing himself. The actor-director whet viewers’ appetite for his savoir faire in April 2020 when a video of him making Negronis in his London home went viral, viewed nearly 6 million times on Twitter alone.

As the host of the CNN travel series Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy—which was filmed before the pandemic but debuted in February 2021—Tucci connected viewers, hungry for adventure and connection while stuck at home, with chefs and locals from his ancestral homeland who offer rich explanations of culinary technique and history.