He washed dishes beneath BlackRock’s headquarters, landed his dream job there—then quit to build his family’s restaurant empire

Anthony Scotto III already knows what he wants to do when his rapidly expanding restaurant business finally gives him a moment to breathe: travel to the small Italian island of Ischia and, with a handwritten family address in hand, knock on the door and hope whoever answers doesn’t tell him to get lost.

But first, Scotto has restaurants to open. The 30-year-old walked away from a sought-after job at BlackRock to help his family build Pelato, a Brooklyn-style Italian restaurant that has grown from one Nashville location into a three-city business employing 300 people. The company expects to serve roughly 450,000 guests this year and has committed to opening two more restaurants in 2027. 

Scotto may be his own boss now, but every dream comes with a tradeoff. He works seven days a week, rarely takes vacations, and is responsible for hundreds of employees.

“I’ve never worked harder in my life,” Scotto told Fortune. “I’ve never been more stressed on a day-to-day in my life.”

BlackRock was always in sight

Both sides of Scotto’s family immigrated from Italy in 1905, settling first in Manhattan’s Little Italy before moving across the bridge to Brooklyn. Restaurants were part of his life before he was even born. His father’s Midtown Manhattan restaurant, Fresco by Scotto, opened in 1993 and became a fixture of his childhood. Every summer and school break, Scotto worked there.

And just because his father owned the restaurant didn’t mean he got off easy. Scotto spent years washing dishes before he was trusted to chop onions or peel potatoes. He preferred the bustle of the kitchen, while some of his cousins gravitated toward the front of the house, and said the experience taught him a lot.

However, he didn’t initially envision taking over the family business; he had dreams of his own as well. Growing up in Manhattan, he saw classmates and their families build generational wealth through finance and real estate. By age 12, he had decided that was the world he wanted to enter. 

The dream was literally quite visible from his family’s restaurant, as it was nestled right under BlackRock’s former headquarters on the same East 52nd Street block. Employees came and ate regularly at Fresco,........

© Fortune