Plead to keep too much in a workshop (7)
I believe the answer is:
bottega
'a workshop' is the definition.
Both the answer and definition are singular nouns.
Maybe there's an association between them I don't understand?
'plead to keep too much in' is the wordplay.
'plead' becomes 'beg' (begging is a kind of pleading).
'to keep' becomes 'a' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'too much' becomes 'OTT' (short for over the top).
'in' is an insertion indicator.
'beg'+'a'='bega'
'bega' going around 'ott' is 'BOTTEGA'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for bottega that I've seen before include "(Italian) wine shop" , "part of workshop" .)