The Italian cake designer Mela Prina has settled down in London and has founded “Kicca Cakes”, a workshop of bespoke cakes.

Mela studied Architecture and Design at Politecnico University in Milan, Italy, but since she was a little girl she loved food and cuisine more than anything else. First she started working as a chef for a number of restaurants and small clubs in her home city, Milan, and then she moved in Europe and America for few years.

Mela arrived in London 12 years ago for the opening of an Italian restaurant in Notting Hill. She realized that the cake's sugar paste decoration is very popular in this city, while it's not so common in Italy. So Mela set up Kicca Cakes, combining her passions for food and art. Now she takes orders through her website and most of the clients know her by word of mouth.
The clients can order a creation by Kicca Cakes for every occasion for their family and friends, throughout the year.

Her atelier is wide, with minimal furniture, very simple and clean: a long table in middle of the space, basic tools such as cutter, drawing pins, and little shapes of mock up of decorations.

Each cake project begins with a consultation with the costumer concerning his favorite flavors, colors, shape, but also hobbies, themes, occasions, personality.

Each cake is bespoke, made specially for each client. She decorates every creation with the same skill of a sculptor realizing his sculptures.
Making cakes is very natural for Mela, as she used to bake with her grandmother when she was a child, and after she grew up she accumulated twenty years work experience in restaurants.

Each cake project begins with a consultation with the costumer concerning his favorite flavors, colors, shape, but also hobbies, themes, occasions, personality etc. Thousand of different possibilities to create personalized cakes depend on what each client wants to express.

Her atelier is wide, with minimal furniture, very simple and clean: a long table in middle of the space, basic tools such as cutter, drawing pins, and little shapes of mock up of decorations. Mostly made by hand. All the ingredients are carefully selected from food suppliers in London.
Mela explains that “the most difficult part of making cakes is handling the sugar paste”. Making one cake takes few hours. Mela laughs thinking to this, as it took few days at beginning.

On the day of the interview, Mela was making a rabbit-shape cake for a client’s child’s first birthday. Mela, smiling, said “I feel like a child playing with a modeling clay”.