Stanley Tucci Makes Ina Garten Her First-Ever Martini on 'Be My Guest With Ina Garten'

Shaken or stirred? If you’re a fan of James Bond, the fictional spy in dozens of books and films, you know he likes his martinis shaken. Food Network chef Ina Garten isn’t sure how she'd like hers — because until Stanley Tucci comes for a visit, she’s never had one.

Stanley's going to take care of that.

While Stanley's not a professional chef, he loves to cook, and Ina has invited him to join her in the kitchen of her East Hampton home. Stanley's mother and grandmother inspired him, he has said, with their traditional Italian dishes, and according to an excerpt in Time, taken from one of his books, he and his mother loved watching Julia Child's cooking shows. In 2009, he portrayed Julia's husband, Paul, in Julie & Julia, a comedy-drama about the late beloved chef.

Stanley made his name as an award-winning director, TV host, writer and actor (he’s starred in more than 100 films, including The Devil Wears Prada, The Hunger Games, Big Night and The Lovely Bones, as well as in on- and off-Broadway plays), and he knows his way around a kitchen. Although Ina says they've known each other "forever," they've never been in the same place before, and he says he's honored to cook with her.

Stanley's planning to use his recipe for martinis and promises not to make their drinks "super dry" as he prepares her first taste of this classic cocktail. "I've never had a martini in my life," Ina admits. "I've had a lot of cocktails, but I've never actually had a real martini."

"Really? You’ve got to get out more,” he jokes. He pours dry white vermouth and a high-quality gin together and shakes the mixture. When Ina asks about the difference between shaking and stirring, he explains, “The stirred style has a slightly more delicate taste. You don’t get any of the little pieces of ice.”

They garnish their glasses with lemon peel and olives and agree that the colorless drinks look elegant and taste delicious.

Stanley, whom Ina calls "food obsessed," tells her he grew up in an Italian-American family that talked about food all time, especially on Sundays, when they ate a classic ragu. He says he's best at cooking Italian, a talent he showed when he co-wrote, co-directed and co-starred in Big Night. The 1996 film told the fictional story of two immigrant brothers who own an Italian restaurant on the Jersey Shore and their attempt to defeat a rival restaurateur by creating a "big night" of fabulous foods. It's a story about love and family and food, themes that Stanley has echoed throughout his career.

While Stanley was making his way to her home in East Hampton, Ina was whipping up Easy Oysters Rockefeller appetizers. She shares a secret shortcut: to save time, she makes them with frozen creamed spinach that's been defrosted, instead of fresh spinach, which has to be cooked and thoroughly drained. Another tip: she deep-crinkles a sheet of tinfoil and places it on a flat pan to keep the half-shell oysters level, so their juices won't spill out. She sautes shallots in butter in another pan, adds some Pernod (an anise-flavored liqueur), salt and pepper, and cooks the mixture just long enough to reduce the liquid. After the creamed spinach goes in, she cooks everything for another couple of minutes to let the spinach soak up the liquid.

Ina uses fresh local oysters for the best flavor. She tops each one with a half tablespoon of the reduced spinach mixture and sprinkles freshly grated Parmesan and Gruyère cheeses on top. They'll go into a 450-degree Fahrenheit oven for six to eight minutes — long enough that the oysters are barely cooked through, the spinach is hot and the cheese is melted. They get a dusting of fleur de sel before she serves them.

Ina and Stanley take their drinks and oysters to the table while they catch up. Ina reveals she gets "terrified" when she cooks for guests because "They expect it's going to be fabulous, and I'm like, it's never going to be as good as they expect. Are you that kind of nervous cook?"

"Without question," he replies.

Ina brings up his best-selling memoir, Taste: My Life Through Food. In it, he discusses what's most important to him and reminisces about his first wife, Kate Spath-Tucci, with whom he shared three children. She passed away from breast cancer in 2006.

In 2012, he wed Felicity Blunt, a literary agent and the sister of actress Emily Blunt. The couple has two children together. Stanley told People that the death of his first wife is "still hard," but that she wouldn't have wanted any of them to let their grief take over their lives.

Stanley faced his own health battle in 2017 when he was diagnosed with throat cancer; his treatments temporarily affected his sense of taste and smell and left him on a feeding tube for six months. He credits his family for supporting him as he recovered. "After that," he tells Ina, "I was obsessed with getting back to the life that I once had."

Despite his work on the 1996 food-focused film Big Night, writing again about recipes and cooking was still in Stanley's future. He had a supporting role in The Devil Wears Prada, which starred Anne Hathaway as an assistant to a powerful, intimidating editor of a high-fashion magazine. Award-winner Meryl Streep, shown here, portrayed the editor.

Looking back, he told Entertainment Weekly that Nigel Kipling, his character in the film, was the one role he played that was most like him in real life, because he had a sense of style and could be slightly caustic. "But he's got a good heart," he says of Nigel. "I mean, I think I've got a good heart."

Here, Stanley appears with Meryl in 2025 on the set of the sequel to The Devil Wears Prada, tentatively called The Devil Wears Prada 2. They're pictured at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.

Another one of Stanley's co-stars in The Devil Wears Prada, actress Anne Hathaway, will also reprise her role in the sequel. It's expected to be released in May 2026; she's pictured here with Stanley in New York City's Central Park.

Emily Blunt, who is Stanley's real-life sister-in-law (his wife, Felicity Blunt, is her sister), will also return for the new movie.

By 2012, Stanley was writing about food and cooking again, and published some of his recipes, wine pairings and family memories in the first of several books. The first one, The Tucci Cookbook, was followed by The Tucci Table: Cooking With Family and Friends. Stanley tells Ina he'd been thinking about doing a cooking show for many years, and from 2021 to 2022, he hosted his own food and travel TV series, Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy.

Now, Stanley says, a great day for him is to wake up on a Saturday morning, shop at a farmers market, do something with his kids and cook. Ina loves fish stew, so he shows her how he makes cacciucco, a fish soup that's much like a stew. "I love fish stew," Ina enthuses. He heats some chopped onions and garlic cloves in a pan with olive oil and adds a splash of white wine and some grape tomatoes.

For more flavor, Stanley tosses in a few torn basil leaves, salt, a pinch of saffron and a little stock. But he confesses that the simplest things make him happy; his favorite food is a peanut butter, banana and honey sandwich.

As the stew simmers, Stanley drops in clams, mussels and shrimp — some in the shell, some unshelled, because he thinks they look prettier that way. He and Ina sip wine while the stew cooks, and Stanley admits he's having a "huge fan moment because I can't believe I'm here. I'm incredibly honored."

Ina and Stanley savor the smell of the simmering tomatoes, saffron and seafood as he removes the shrimp before they overcook. Meanwhile, Ina has cooked and drained a pound of pasta. They make a sauce with a ladle of fish stock, some parsley and a little pasta water they reserved. In Southern Italy, Stanley says, you'd eat this dish with a fork and spoon. In the northern part of the country, you'd add a knife.

"Most Italian cooking happens fast," he says, adding that if you have really good ingredients, you don't need a lot of them. The bowls of pasta and stew are topped with a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil for more flavor, along with the seafood. Ina tastes the stew and pronounces it "heaven."

The fish stew is garnished with more fresh parsley, an herb that Ina says people add for color, but "the truth is that good parsley has good flavor."

"That's gorgeous," he says, watching her fine-chop the parsley.

"Oh, he said my parsley's gorgeous," Ina says, laughing.

"And I hardly know you," he replies.

After their meal, they take Ina's car to the beach in East Hampton to sit by the water and sip from cups of cold-brew coffee. Ina says, "I had my first martini. Why do I think it's the first of many to come? What a great day."

Stanley's most recent title, What I Ate in One Year: (and Related Thoughts), published in 2024 by Gallery Books, chronicles the foods he ate and the memories he made over a period of 12 months. With characteristic wit and dry humor, he recounts his experiences with all sorts of foods, from a rich and flavorful lasagna Bolognese he enjoyed to his passionate dislike of passionfruit.