Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy

The show's premiere on February 14, 2021, had 1.52 million viewers, and its second episode, which aired on February 21, had 1.64 million viewers. The show's main viewing demographic consisted of adults between the ages of 25 and 54.[3]

On Metacritic, the series has an aggregated score of 76 out of 100 based on 5 critic reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[6]

John Anderson, writing for The Wall Street Journal, wrote that Stanley Tucci is "not a performer given to grand gestures. So when he tastes the yolk-fattened spaghetti carbonara in a Roman restaurant, closes both eyes and spontaneously hugs the chef, it is the equivalent of fireworks over the Tiber", adding that the series contains a number of such moments. He concluded: "It’s a marvelously well-written show, briskly paced, and makes the rest of the food-TV competition as appetizing as last night’s mozzarella sticks."[7]

Helen Rosner of The New Yorker described the series as "a good show, but not quite a great one. Its culinary discoveries ... are not new, and its gloss on the less glamorous aspects of Italian culture and history are rarely more than decorative." She described Tucci in the series as "a figure out of time", and wrote: "Like Tucci, Anthony Bourdain was rich in charisma and possessed unlikely sex appeal. But Bourdain the travel-show host served as a spotlight, fondly illuminating the people and places around him. Tucci is an electromagnet. Even when he’s in a crowd, he seems like the only person on the screen", adding: "the show is at its best when it stops fighting the desire to focus entirely on him."[8]

Sophie Gilbert, writing for The Atlantic, said that the series "presents itself as escapism, even as it half-acknowledges the reality of the pandemic", and wrote: "Some travelogues, such as the late Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown, seek out underexplored destinations and culinary traditions. Searching for Italy takes its audience through the most obvious stops on the Italian itinerary (Rome! Milan! Tuscany!) while winking at the darker crevices of our imagination." She concluded her review by stating: "An episode filmed in Rome, though, predates 2020, and filled me with anxiety: Tucci dines indoors in a tiny pasta restaurant near the Pantheon, stuffed with visitors eating and drinking and expounding volubly in Italian. ... When will we be able to actually do this again? Will we even want to?"[9]

Caroline Framke, writing for Variety, criticized the series for choosing to air an episode filmed during a brief period of respite from the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy as the first episode, stating: "Launching "Searching For Italy" with this episode is an extremely confusing choice, and not just because we now know that this apparent "moment of normality" didn't last", and adding: "treating an enormous event such as a pandemic like an inconvenient asterisk does a disservice to both the show and the country it covers. ... This bizarre initial decision is made even more frustrating by the fact that the series is otherwise very smart and endearing." However, she praised Tucci for exploring Rome's less well-known locations and meals in the second episode, including "a fascinating detour into the inventive ways Italian chefs have transformed offal, or all the organs and bits of gristly meat that poorer Italians learned to work into delicacies." She concluded: "it’s a sincere pleasure to spend some time there vicariously through a host as game and genial as Tucci. Should he ever decide to expand his tour of the country and actually unravel its thorny new reality instead of glossing over it, it would probably make for even more fascinating, revealing television."[5]