Pasticceria

Pastries and fancy cakes are served with coffee or wine in cafés, and Italians buy them at pasticcerie to take home for holidays or for special occasions. But these sophisticated creations of the pasticcerie are not often attempted by busy home cooks.

Everything, except bars and restaurants, closes on Sunday, though you might find pasticcerias, and fish shops in some coastal towns, open until lunchtime.

The neighborhood stores – the pasticcerie, the salumerie – are a delight.

In Capri there are many small pasticcerias that sell this delicious, crumbly bitter chocolate and almond cake.

Eventually, the ancient Piazza Navona, with its famous Baroque fountain in the middle of a first-century Roman circus, its outdoor cafes and pasticcerias serving delectable dolci, its roving portrait artists and lively street theater, would be way too touristy for the cool American students we’d become, but for a first night’s foray into the Roman evening it made a perfect destination.

At the beautiful pasticcerias, Benedicta and Father Giuseppe got themselves each a cup of coffee.

Many pasticcerie also made pizza; in fact, the dedicated pizzeria was not that common back in the day.

He lived, as did many Italian immigrants of the time in Carlton, known as “Little Italy”, on the fringe of Melbourne city. It was a safe, vibrant, community with Italian delis, restaurants, pasticcerias, coffee bars, a movie theatre, and of course a gelateria.