Tucci’s glittering acting career spans various genres with many accolades, but he also dabbled in the foodie world as a struggling Italian restaurant owner in Big Night (1996) and as the husband of legendary cookery writer Julia Child in Julie & Julia (2009). Since moving to London, Tucci has somehow found time around filming The Hunger Games trilogy to release a cookbook this year with his wife Felicity Blunt. The Tucci Table is full of dishes inspired by his childhood growing up in an Italian family in America, as well his current family life with Blunt and their children. The parmigiana he cooked for Mazzei and Mazzanti on the day was from this book and is a dish that makes the best use of seasonal vegetables like courgettes, aubergines, tomatoes and his unconventional addition, potatoes. Food is clearly close to Tucci’s heart and throughout the day he peppered Mazzei with questions about everything from provenance to how to check when a joint of meat is ready.

Mazzanti brought his own roots into play when he prepared his Austrian mother’s spaghetti puttanesca recipe, an Italian classic with anchovies, capers, herbs and black olives. While the name of the dish is controversial (it is said that the smell of it wafting through the streets would lure men into the hands of prostitutes), Mazzanti’s dish tasted fantastic with its punchy tomato sauce enlivened by the saltiness of the capers and anchovies.

There was a lot of laughing, chatting and good-natured banter during the long day of filming but as the three Italians finally tucked into the food, this gave way to satisfied sighs of contentment.

Great Italian Chefs launches in autumn 2015. Follow its progress on google+, facebook and twitter @greatitalianchefs.