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Reviews Lifestyle The New Sober Boom Getting Hooked on Quitting Education Liberal Arts Cuts Are Dangerous Is College Necessary? Finance Dying Parents Costing Millennials Dear Gen Z Investing In Le Creuset Crypto Investing SEC vs Celebrity Crypto Promoters ‘Dark’ Personalities Drawn to BTC

Lifestyle The New Sober Boom Getting Hooked on Quitting

Getting Hooked on Quitting

Education Liberal Arts Cuts Are Dangerous Is College Necessary?

Liberal Arts Cuts Are Dangerous

Is College Necessary?

Finance Dying Parents Costing Millennials Dear Gen Z Investing In Le Creuset

Dying Parents Costing Millennials Dear

Gen Z Investing In Le Creuset

Crypto Investing SEC vs Celebrity Crypto Promoters ‘Dark’ Personalities Drawn to BTC

Investing SEC vs Celebrity Crypto Promoters ‘Dark’ Personalities Drawn to BTC

SEC vs Celebrity Crypto Promoters

‘Dark’ Personalities Drawn to BTC

What Stanley Tucci gets wrong about Olive Garden

I would trade my Michelin restaurant experience in Italy any day for a trip to Olive Garden with family

Published June 3, 2026 12:30PM (EDT)

Stanley Tucci, who is now arguably as synonymous with food as he is with the movies, nearly broke his self-described policy of not naming restaurants he doesn’t like.

“Have you ever been to an Olive Garden in your life?” an interviewer recently asked the “Devil Wears Prada” star.

The answer, perhaps surprisingly to some, from the face of “Tucci in Italy” is “yes.” Years ago, Tucci was making a movie in Salt Lake City, and when he didn’t know where to eat, he went to Olive Garden. Stars, they’re just like us, right?

Not exactly. “I went to that place,” Tucci said, avoiding uttering the chain’s name aloud. “I still bear the scars.” For Tucci, who is an arbiter of taste in the culinary world, that trip to Olive Garden appears to have been a one and done. I, meanwhile, can’t count on my fingers and toes how many times I’ve been to “that place.” I have no scars to show for it — only memories born of breaking bread, or rather breadsticks, with loved ones.

A couple of days later, I went to see “The Devil Wears Prada 2,” and I was reminded that as much as we, the audience, love Tucci’s character Nigel Kipling for being a tastemaker in the world of fashion, who we truly fall for time and again is Anne Hathaway’s Andy Sachs. She’s one of us, a fan of an onion bagel for breakfast, even if it makes her breath stink. I would like to believe Andy’s been to Olive Garden more than once. 

Coming from a middle-class home in the country’s heartland (at least in the film), she would be able to see that Tucci’s remarks on the restaurant chain are revealing — not just about him, but about our current culture. About us. About what it means to be a “foodie,” especially in this new era when stand and stir shows have disappeared from Food Network — and TV at large — in favor of ever-popular food competition series where the aim isn’t nourishment but rather a constant, unwavering pursuit of the best.

Rooted in cooking over competition, the shows that are greenlit these days are typically fronted by celebrities, often with various degrees of experience in the kitchen. Even they have trouble sticking the landing. We got two seasons of Meghan Markle’s aspirational “With Love, Meghan,” for example, but only one very memorable season of Paris Hilton’s perfectly imperfect “Cooking with Paris.”

The exception is the rare celebrity chef with a built-in or enduring audience, such as Gordon Ramsay. The Brit has hosted more competition shows than I can count, yet also gifted food lovers with “Uncharted” in the vein of Anthony Bourdain before him. Lidia Bastianich has a longstanding relationship with PBS, while Ina Garten lives immortal with “Be My Guest.”

(ANGELA WEISS / AFP via Getty Images) US actor Stanley Tucci attends the world premiere of “The Devil Wears Prada 2” at Lincoln Center in New York City, on April 20, 2026.

All of this is a result of the increasing noise — and power — of social media. On Instagram, as with Facebook before it, likes are a commodity. These days, the next Sandra Lee or Rachael Ray is more easily to be found on Instagram or TikTok. Or the next prominent food critic, for that matter. One no longer has to work for an institution like the Grey Lady when they’re able to gain millions of their own followers by rating what restaurant dishes are worth the hype.

Of course, social media has contributed to Tucci’s influence and rise. He was declared a “Patron Saint of Quarantine,” courtesy of a viral negroni he dutifully........

© Salon