At the beginning of the last century in chair street, in what is now the heart of the historic center of Rome, the Zitelli family owned 5 cows that he grazed on the banks of the Tiber. The imposing Ministry of Justice in Via Arenula had not yet been built and the sandy soils from Largo Argentina sloped down towards the river at the height of the Tiber Island. At the end of the day the cows returned to the barn.
With those five cows the Zitelli family obtained a living selling his fresh milk in a miserable shop. Scenes of a Rome disappeared which had maintained a historical rural memory, now definitively disappeared, with the urbanization that followed the taking of Porta Pia and the building development of Rome capital of the Kingdom of Italy.
Things went well and so it was that in that shop the Zitelli family thought well of expanding the turnover with something more profitable, exploiting the raw material they had available, milk and garden produce. And that was how it was an ice cream parlor was born, a sector that promised good earnings.
There was the example of illustrious precedents. In 1880 a small ice shop in via delle Quattro Fontane near Piazza Barberini built a success story. Giacomo Fassi, of Piedmontese origin, who had started out by selling "gratta quecche", ice cream slushes, around Rome, and his Sicilian wife Giuseppina, had opened an ice cream parlor that would lead their son, Giovanni, to become pastry chef at the Royal House, giving rise to one of the most important gelato dynasties in the capital.
Ten years later, in 1890 Giuseppe and Bernardina Giolitti they had opened a dairy where they sold their own milk from the pastures of the Roman countryside. And in a short time, thanks to the quality of their products, their shop became the dairy of the Royal House. From milk to ice cream the step was consequent, and also in this case a dynasty of ice cream makers developed that made history.
In Rome, in the early 900s, the first real ice cream parlors began to appear, producing healthy and nutritious ice creams, homemade, with artisan tools and a lot of passion. The Zitelli family is among these, their ice cream parlor was successful, distinguishing itself for the goodness of the raw materials used, all genuine.
Then due to the evolution of the times, in that historic shop in via della Seggiola 12, a stone's throw from Largo di Torre Argentina, years later he settled Alberto Pica with his family, his wife Maria and his daughters the Pica ice cream parlor established itself as one of the most genuine and refined artisan ice cream parlors in Rome.
On Alberto's death the helm passed to his sons, who have come a long way, always assisted by the help of Signora Maria.
Since 1971 with the artisan ice cream Antonio and his son Alberto, and now his two sons, have written pages of the history of the Capitoline ice cream art. First in the historic San Lorenzo district, now in the famous – for the originality of tastes and the authoritative guests – Gelateria Latteria Pica.
Then came the pandemic. The Picas took the opportunity to close their doors and study a restyling of the restaurant in via della Seggiola: new furnishings, products and their authenticity that have remained intact and above all with the aim of carrying on the Italian tradition of artisan ice cream.
Antonio's family has interpreted the true art of making ice cream by hand, with fresh raw materials. Their rice flavor has conquered Japan: in 1988 Maria left for Tokyo, for an important gelato diplomacy mission, 15 days to teach the Japanese division of Carpigiani how to make cones and cups better, the Italian company specializing in the production of ice cream machines which controls about 35% of the global market share, which includes both machines for the production of Italian artisanal ice cream and those for the production of soft ice cream and ice cream. It was an overwhelming success.
Pica ice cream shop today boasts over 50 flavors aEven if its strong points have remained the rice flavors with the various variations, rice with cream, with cinnamon, chocolate-rice, with strawberries, honey-orange, ricotta and pears. Many famous people who have trampled the floor of the room. From Sandro Pertini to Giulio Andreotti and then Vittorio Gassman and his sons, Carlo Verdone, which is at home in via della Seggiola. There is no shortage of anecdotes, told in the book in memory of Alberto Pica, such as the one that several Capitoline mayors, from Signorello to Darida, from Carraro to Veltroni to Rutelli up to Alemanno, had Pica ice cream brought to the Sala delle Bandiere, in the Campidoglio. Even the mayor Raggi knows the place well and among her favorite flavors she has rice ice cream.
