‘Stanley Tucci put my local Florentine trattoria on TV – now I can't get a table'

Telegraph

19-06-2025

'It's amazing: you've sustained this culture for thousands of years,' gushes Stanley Tucci in his new National Geographic travelogue, Tucci in Italy.
It is the third such venture for the Academy Award nominee, joining a long tradition of celebrity-fronted travel shows that find 'hidden corners' of the globe. This time, however, the stakes are different.
Overcrowding at renowned beauty spots has been particularly marked in recent years, so much so that waves of protests have taken place across southern Europe.
Generally, the sense has been that this was the fault of social media-obsessed influencers, snapping shots of Instagram-friendly scenes without much care for local people.
Could it be, however, that travelogues are the original reason places feel overwhelmed? Take Padstow as an example.
The Cornish fishing village, once charming, is now a prime example of the hype created by television programmes. The harbour-front teems with visitors; available restaurant tables are rarer than sustainably caught salmon. It's a phenomenon that has long been attributed to TV chef and seafood connoisseur Rick Stein, to the extent that it is often dubbed 'Padstein'.
Stein first showed the town in Taste of the Sea, broadcast in 1995. The harbour town has featured, repeatedly, in his programmes since; elevated for its camera-ready coves and, above all, 'authenticity'.
In the first instance, Stein probably did alight on something remarkable: this was the home of a declining industry, pulling in exquisitely fresh fish, in an extraordinarily quaint setting.
But the ensuing mania has long since eroded that initial charm. His investment in the area – some four restaurants, alongside accommodation, has presumably entrenched his interest in the place. With that comes greater promotion (and more tourists).
In the intervening years, this phenomenon has been repeated. Rick Steves took on Cinque Terre.
Comedians – Jack Whitehall, Dara O'Brien, Sue Perkins – have explored Romania, the US and Vietnam. An inordinate number of city breaks were taken by Richard Ayoade and latterly Joe Lycett in Travel Man, with each element eminently replicable, down to pricing per activity. Its YouTube channel garners some two million views a month.
This is broad-strokes stuff, aimed at the general holidaymaker.
Anthony Bourdain's oft-repeated line about being a traveller, not a tourist, possibly inspired a different kind of holiday than Stein et al.
The American chef's effect, though, might well be the same, especially for once under-the-radar spots. The travel magazine Skift cited an 88.8 per cent increase in internet searches for Sicily after an episode of Parts Unknown was filmed there.
And many of the restaurants featured in his programme are far from unhappy. Bún chả Hương Liên, the restaurant in Hanoi where Bourdain ate with Barack Obama, has encased their table in perspex. It now advertises itself as 'Bun Cha Obama'.
Travelogues do not solely send people in pursuit of restaurants. Take Joanna Lumley's series, exploring, earnestly, places such as the Silk Road, the Danube, the 'Spice Trail'.
Her entreaties to visit these (often post-colonial) destinations are of a different style – and price point – to the exploits of Bourdain. Her programmes cater to those who remember her as a model in the Sixties, or her work as an actor in the intervening decades.
And this is a demographic with money to spend. A recent report by consultancy firm McKinsey found that baby boomers – those born between 1946-1964 – spent three times more than Gen Z on travel in 2023.
Here is, possibly, the difference. While influencers might display the delights of a stylish, design-focussed hotel, many followers will not have the income to take the same trip themselves.
The Lumley brand is different: a leisurely Nile cruise is within reach for a large proportion of her viewers.
This, too, is the appeal of Tucci. Here is Hollywood royalty, walking the streets of Florence – as the viewer can. He is just like us, the programme posits, making simple pasta dishes and drinking crisp apéritifs. He is stylish, undeniably, but he does all this with humour, and so can you.
And here he is in a tiny, Florentine trattoria – tucked away from the main tourist areas, but accessible enough that, some locals fear, it will soon be heaving with visitors.
'It was a very, very, very local bar, totally neighbourhood,' says local resident Lucy Millar*, who has lived in Florence since the early 1980s.
The owner has promised to reserve tables for her regular customers, regardless of the expected post-Tucci rush. 'I don't know if this will be possible, though, because I think she will be swamped. This is a whole different level,' she says.
Such a situation has form. Tucci's first series highlighted the centuries-old Tuscan practice of serving drinks out of tiny hatches. Now, says Millar, the once-quaint cobblestones are besieged.
'The street is crammed with people every day waiting for a drink out of the wine window,' she complains. 'I have a friend who lives near the window that Tucci originally featured and there are people sitting on the doorstep 24 hours a day.'
She does not, however, blame Tucci himself: 'It lies with the fixers who are doing the groundwork for him. They know exactly what they are doing. They have a responsibility.'
For residents of a city, a travelogue might seem to diminish its essential character; the streets thronging with visitors all yearning for the same experience. As Millar puts it, though, that same sentiment might not be felt by business owners. In cities such as Venice and Florence, the tourism industry accounts for such a large proportion of the local economy that it is unlikely they will turn away promotion.
'It's a dilemma,' she says. 'You can't bite the hand that feeds you.' One thing is for certain, though: after somewhere features in a travelogue, 'it will never be the same.'
*not her real name