I wrote a lockdown diary for Red Magazine last week – that’s a plug, obviously, but it’s also a confession, because I was partly inspired by Stanley Tucci’s entrancing piece for the Atlantic last year, where he described being an Epicurean during a pandemic, and locking down with various kids and grown-up children. He really likes to cook and clean, which makes him ideal husband material, but it was his gentle sweary cantankerousness that really endeared him to me. I went down a bit of a Stanley rabbit hole, looking up YouTube clips of him making Negronis (check out those ARMS), dreaming of living with his family and being cooked Pasta alla Norma every night. When I saw the trailer for a new food series he’d made for CNN, my reaction was a dribbly, moany one. It was all sunny and gorgeous, and they were drinking wine and he was speaking Italian and talking about doors of paradise, and I thought this could be my little door of paradise as I count down the seconds until schools open again…

Anyway, in a Square Eyes *first*, I managed to score a PREVIEW, so UK viewers, keep your eyes peeled for this show if it makes it across the pond, because you’ll need it in your lives whether you’re in lockdown or not. The series is called Searching for Italy, and it’s basically Stanley having impeccable diction and eating different types of pasta. In Italy. I mean, what’s not to love? Let me gush in more detail about all the things there are to love:

The setting. As someone who hasn’t been further than my local chemist in the last three months, that Neapolitan backdrop was like dangling a fifty-pound note in front of Jacob Rees-Mogg. Glittering sea, sun-bleached cobbled streets and wrought-iron balconies… When this is all over, we’re all getting on a plane and going to Campania to eat mozzarella straight from the buffalo’s teat, right? Andiamo.

God, the food. Plump, ruby-red tomatoes plucked from the vine, an emerald bunch of basil that was the prettiest bouquet I’ve ever seen, fat lemons salted by spray from the Amalfi coast… I’ve just embarked on a coming-out-of-lockdown diet, so this was possibly not the best time to watch a sumptuous feast overflowing with butter, cream and fatty bits of pork. I could have crammed ten of those Delizie al Limone into my face and still had room for a limoncello chaser. ‘I want to eat the television,’ mumbled my husband at one point, wiping the drool from the side of his mouth. We had to put the volume up to drown out the sound of our bellies rumbling. There was a section on offal that I didn’t find so appetising, but it’s the underbelly of this show that makes it a cut above – and I’ll come to that in a second.

First, let’s take a moment to appreciate Stanley himself – elegant, replete and self-possessed, he strolls around various Italian cities with a jumper knotted about his neck, looking super-cool and completely at home. There are a lot of shots of him doing this, and I can’t get enough of them. To add to the edge, the show’s graphics have a Killing Eve vibe, with tongue-in-cheek titles like OUT OF THE FRYING PAN INTO THE OVEN emblazoned across the screen. Stanley is bone dry, and sometimes can’t resist taking the piss out of the people (often old friends) he meets, provoking much Roman gesticulation and flashing of teeth. But despite his film-star status, what’s interesting about his role in this series is how restrained it is – he doesn’t cook, and his commentary is laidback and low-key, leaving the drama to the people he meets, the food he eats, those beautiful backdrops. With his benign tones lilting like a wave undulating against the shore, Stanley becomes a beatific but neutral presence, letting his subjects shine.

The other intriguing thing about this show is its darker side and offal undertones. Sure, we get stunning coastlines and jaw-dropping volcanic panoramas, but the camera also takes us to the seedier side of Italy – off the seafront and beaten track to the backstreets, visiting grubbier and more unexpected establishments. We see Romany communities infiltrating derelict blocks to start a social enterprise, links between pasta and anti-fascism, a young chef doing extraordinary things with innards. There’s a particularly disturbing scene involving a Roman café owner whose place was firebombed, a world away from the glossy tourist brochure view. In this series, Stanley offers you the Fifth Quarter – an extra, tougher slice of life that other food shows might find unpalatable. His search for Italy includes the outcasts and underdogs, those given the poorest cuts but making the best of them, and it’s a more thoughtful, introspective experience as a result.

Another recurring theme is the pursuit of culinary confidences - secret recipes, jealously guarded by matriarchs; exact ratios protected by chefs; missing ingredients deliberately left out to fox the less seasoned foodie. But the biggest secret of all is how the fuck Stanley stays so lithe when he eats all this shit. Honestly, he was shovelling in spaghetti and quaffing Montepulciano like there was no tomorrow. I can only assume he worked out like a fiend back at the hotel after filming, or perhaps has been on a monkish fast ever since. Anyway, his taut biceps were an inspiration as I battled to resist the half-bottle of Pinot Grigio left in the fridge. Less a taste of Italy, more the whiff of a Finsbury Park offy. It’s my own seedier side, and it’s looking increasingly flabby thanks to the stress of home-schooling.

This was a wonderful diversion from the daily drudgery, lifting my spirits, watering my mouth and fuelling my passion for the Tucci household. It’s the most I’ve enjoyed watching CNN since Biden’s inauguration, and I felt entirely transported. The only thing that would have made it better is if Stanley came round to make me a Negroni to go with it, and then we did press-ups together. Still, non si può avere tutto!

• Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy – 6 episodes, CNN

NB – this isn’t available for UK viewers at the moment, but I predict it’ll get snapped up sharpish