Stanley Tucci Cooked This Iconic Fish Dish for Harry Styles

Sometimes, the celebrity and food worlds collide in an unexpected way. I love to think about how Meryl Streep cooks this Julia Child recipe or the fact that Willie Nelson and Kate Middleton somehow eat the same breakfast. It feels so normal.

Then I found out that Stanley Tucci once had Harry Styles over for dinner, which is somehow more surprising than Tucci having a royal dinner with King Charles.

What did Stanley Tucci serve Harry Styles?

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In his book What I Ate in One Year, Tucci recalls that Harry Styles came for dinner at his London home. Styles, Tucci and his wife, Felicity Blunt, shared a delightful meal, and Tucci wrote that Styles brought “one of the best single-malt scotches I’ve ever tasted.”

Tucci cooked a decadent Italian feast for the trio, including leek and zucchini risotto, carrot salad and a special tomato-based fish dish called cod alla Livornese. In an interview with People, Tucci says he first ate cod alla Livornese at a tiny restaurant in New York’s Little Italy about 40 years ago, “and it was perfect,” he said. “Ever since then, I’ve been trying to match that.”

What is cod alla Livornese?

It’s a traditional dish from Livorno, a city in Tuscany on the west coast of Italy. In this recipe, cod is pan-fried with tomatoes, olives and capers. “Fresh is always better, but you can absolutely use defrosted frozen fish,” Tucci told People. “You can also use canned whole tomatoes instead of cherry tomatoes.”

This recipe comes together quickly since cod only needs 6 to 8 minutes to cook. The acidity of the tomatoes works well with the salty olives and capers, and creates a sauce that complements the cod. You can prepare alla Livornese any time of year, but it’s a particularly good recipe for Fridays during Lent.