When Anastassia and Noli Tsivy opened Oda Wine Garden three summers ago, they weren’t setting out to build a restaurant group. They simply wanted to make better use of a sunny patio attached to an investment property in Margaretville, pour the natural wines they loved, and see whether years spent working in hospitality before corporate careers could become something more.
The experiment snowballed.
Oda quickly became a distinctive Catskills dining destination, introducing diners to Balkan small plates and ancient-world natural wines rarely found elsewhere in the region. Then came Sun & Soil Bottle Shop in Andes, extending that wine philosophy beyond the restaurant.
Now the couple has added a third concept: Tomato Tomahto, an all-day Italian diner and bakery that broadens both their audience and their ambitions of a burgeoning culinary ecosystem in Margaretville and Andes. “Most definitely we’re thinking about it that way,” Tsivy says. “Particularly around Oda and the wine business. Those are all very connected to each other both as concepts and as businesses.”
If Oda is deeply personal—a reflection of the couple’s Georgian and Albanian heritage—Tomato Tomahto was conceived differently. After several years of running Oda, they noticed gaps in Margaretville’s dining scene. There weren’t many places where families with young children could gather, or somewhere offering familiar food that didn’t sacrifice quality. “Italian food,” Tsivy says simply. “Everyone loves Italian food.”
The opportunity arrived when an existing Italian restaurant at 520 Main Street became available. Initially, the Tsivys considered turning it into an event venue to accommodate Oda’s popular themed dinners. But the more they discussed it, the more they saw the chance to create a concept that could eventually live beyond Margaretville. “We wanted to come up with something that filled some of those gaps we’d observed,” Tsivy says, “and also something that could be a multi-location business, almost like a chain.”
Unlike Oda, which grew organically from the couple’s own traditions, Tomato Tomahto was designed from the outset around a clear idea: an approachable Italian restaurant that changes throughout the day while remaining unmistakably itself.
Breakfast begins with espresso, cappuccino, and fresh-squeezed orange juice alongside breakfast sandwiches on house-baked focaccia, ricotta zeppole with cannoli cream and blueberry jam, pane fritto—Italian-style French toast topped with strawberries, sweet cream, and maple syrup—and silky panna cotta layered with crunchy granola and cherry compote. Most dishes fall between $11 and $16, making it easy to linger over coffee or settle in for a leisurely brunch.
By lunch, the bakery gives way to focaccia sandwiches stuffed with speck, fresh mozzarella, arugula, and balsamic, or mortadella, burrata, and pistachio pesto. Neo-Neapolitan pizzas emerge from the oven with blistered crusts, from a classic $16 Margherita to spicy soppressata or truffle-laced Funghi pies.
Dinner expands the menu further without abandoning its casual spirit. There are pappardelle tossed in slow-cooked beef ragu, chicken Milanese, salmon over creamy polenta, and a ricotta ravioli served not as individual pockets but as a single uncut sheet dressed with sage cream, corn, and jalapeño. Pizzas remain central, including a Vodka e Burrata pie layered with fresh mozzarella, pesto, creamy burrata, and vodka sauce. Most entrées land between $19 and $29.
The pricing is almost as notable as the menu itself. In an era when restaurants routinely push entrees toward $40, Tomato Tomahto feels refreshingly attainable. “This is not an elevated tablecloth place,” Tsivy says. “I really wanted it to be inviting for families, for kids, and kind of very casual but pretty.”
That philosophy extends beyond the decor to the food itself. The menu rarely asks diners to decipher unfamiliar ingredients or embrace culinary risk. Instead, it focuses on familiar Italian classics executed with unusual care. “We think about what are some of the most indulgent Italian classics that we can introduce that are familiar to people,” Tsivy says. “People aren’t taking a huge risk.”
Take the Margherita pizza. It appears simple, but Tsivy describes months of experimentation with flour, hydration, fermentation, and oven temperatures before settling on the dough they serve today. “There’s a lot of thought behind it that I don’t think is very obvious to the person eating it,” she says. “They’re just going to enjoy it.”
That same attention appears in details many restaurants outsource. Bread is baked in-house on weekends while the Tsivys continue searching for a full-time baker. Soft serve is made from scratch using fresh cream instead of powdered mixes, with rotating flavors that range from classic vanilla to black cocoa and charcoal or limoncello with rosemary. Originally intended to entice children—including the couple’s own toddler—it has become just as popular with adults.
Hiring remains the restaurant’s greatest challenge. Finding experienced bakers and pizza makers in a rural community has proved difficult enough that Tomato Tomahto currently operates only Friday through Sunday.
Still, the trajectory is unmistakable. Oda introduced Margaretville to Balkan cooking and natural wine. Sun & Soil gave visitors a place to take those bottles home. Tomato Tomahto rounds out the picture with breakfast pastries, lunchtime focaccia, dinner pizzas, handmade pasta, and scratch-made soft serve.
Together, the three businesses feel less like separate ventures than complementary pieces of a larger vision that makes for compelling small-town dining in this corner of the Catksills.
