ST. PETERSBURG — The English-cottage-style building on 4th Street North that was a Melting Pot fondue restaurant for more than 30 years, and then briefly Sesh, is getting another restaurant: Pelato, a Brooklyn-Italian small-plates spot from Nashville.
Avenue T Hospitality Group bought the 7,630-square-foot property at 2221 4th St. N. for $4 million, according to a deed recorded Oct. 7 and first reported by St. Pete Rising. The group also took out a $5.355 million loan from Pinnacle Bank for the deal. No opening date has been announced.
What Pelato serves
Chef Anthony Scotto and his wife, Teresa, started Pelato after moving from New York to Nashville in 2022. The first location opened there in 2023, followed by Charleston, South Carolina, and Franklin, Tennessee. St. Pete would be the fourth.
The menu is built for sharing, not for ordering one entree each. The best-known dish is the potato croquettes, made from Teresa's mother's recipe. There's also panelle with whipped ricotta, Brooklyn-style fried calamari, Anthony's family chicken scarpariello, house-made pastas like radiatori vodka and bucatini cacio e pepe, chicken parm, baked stuffed shells and stromboli.
The bar sticks with the New York-meets-Italy theme: frozen espresso martinis, a New York Sour, an espresso old fashioned, a limoncello margarita and sangria. On Sundays, the restaurant does a “Sunday Sauce” dinner for two built around a long-simmered pot of red sauce.
A building with a long restaurant history
Earl Gresh built the cottage in the 1930s and ran it as a tourist attraction, the Earl Gresh Wood Parade. French restaurant Rollande et Pierre was there from 1959 to 1985, and The Melting Pot took over after that for more than three decades.
Mad Beach Craft Brewing founder Matthew Powers bought the property in 2021 for $1.425 million, renovated it and opened Sesh in 2023. Sesh closed for good in late 2025. The building has an indoor-outdoor bar facing 4th Street, a patio and a big main dining room built around a brick chimney.