In addition to delectable lunch, dinner, and Sunday jazz brunch, Tootles & French hosts wine tasting classes and wine dinners featuring vintages and paired dishes… showcasing wine from unique areas and underrepresented winemakers and often welcome very special guests representing top wineries at their wine dinners.
Tootles & French, opened in April 2023 by owner Chad Goldsmith, an Astoria resident, was recently voted #1 in USA Today’s Best New Restaurants in the US. Tootles & French offers more than a unique dining experience with inventive food, curated spirits, and fine and sustainable wines from all over the world; it offers a sense of community, created to bring people together, especially local residents. In addition to delectable lunch, dinner, and Sunday jazz brunch, Tootles & French hosts wine tasting classes and wine dinners featuring vintages and paired dishes from wine-producing regions.
Following are some superb events and offerings from Tootles & French to explore:
Tootles & French offers special Wine Dinners twice per month with different themes, regions and guest hosts. The food for the pairings are custom to the event and themed around the wine being served, so it is not food available on the regular menu (though some dishes make it to seasonal menus afterwards, based on popular demand). These dinners also include specialty wines that typically are inaccessible due to either price, rarity, lack of awareness, etc. At the minimum most of the items on these dinners would only be seen on wine lists by the bottle and not testable by the glass.
Special guest hosts worth mentioning from the past year at Tootles:
Pierre Ogren de Rothschild, Great Grandson of Baron Phillipe de Rothschild, hosted an Escudo Rojo Wine Dinner. Escudo Rojo being the Rothschild’s Chilean vineyard, their most well known is in Bordeaux.
Alec Griffith of Bodega Garzon. Bodega Garzon is a winery in Uruguay and is ranked in the top 15 wineries in the world six consecutive years by Wine Enthusiast.
Aimee Keushguerian, an Armenian winemaker, hosted two back-to-back events including a Wine Dinner and Watch Party of the movie, SOMM: Cup of Salvation, in which Aimee and her father co-star. This movie and the event feature the only wine to ever be made with Iranian grapes (that were smuggled in the movie) as it is illegal to make wine in Iran. Tootles & French still has this wine, “Molana” available.
Tootles & French was opened in April 2023 by owner Chad Goldsmith. Chad, his partner Vanessa Massas, and Tony and Genevieve lead a wonderful team of friendly servers and bartenders in this beautiful restaurant.
Tootles & French showcases wine from unique areas and underrepresented winemakers at events frequently. As noted above, they have featured Armenia and Uruguay in the past. They have also done Wine Dinners featuring Georgia (country), Ukraine, South Africa (this was vegan and raised money for anti-poaching), and others as well as sub-regions less often featured by others from more popular wine countries. Coming up in the fall they will be doing wine dinners showcasing Puglia, Italy as well as Mexico (This one’s exciting!).
Occasionally they also do themed dinners such as Jurassic Grapes (this was all grape varietals that had gone extinct and were brought back with modern agriculture) and this week they have Island Time (four courses of wine from European islands paired with Caribbean food).
Tootles & French is sponsoring the second Astoria-Ditmars Restaurant Week, August 18 through August 24. The event is organized by Tootles & French owner Chad Goldsmith, through the DDMA (Destination Ditmars Merchants Association) where Goldsmith is currently in charge of the restaurant sub-committee. There will be approximately
30 restaurants (potentially more) doing 3-item specials for $25 (Weekday Lunch), $35 (Weekend Lunch/Brunch), and $45 (Dinner) showcasing some of their favorite items and supporting each other by collaborating together as a community. There is also a Bar/Bakery special for counter-service and not full-service bars to participate at $25. It takes place throughout the Astoria-Ditmars area, not only on Ditmars Blvd, so all restaurants are invited that are in Astoria and north of the Grand Central Parkway.
For more info, visit: www.ditmarsrestaurantweek.com | Instagram: @ditmarsrestaurantweek
Tootles & French | 36-15 Ditmars Blvd, Astoria, NY 11105.
Tootles & French was selected as the Gazette’s Restaurant of the Week by Teresa Macchio in the February 5, 2025 issue. You can read the review at qgazette.com.
Dining and Cooking