The New York bagel scene: Let the past die

Perhaps other cities think their bagels are as good as NY's because the old-school shops kinda suck?

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On my recent trip to New York City, I ate a lot of bagels.

I didn’t eat ALL of the bagels, and I certainly didn’t have the time to eat all of the trendy bagels boasting long lines and social media stardom, but I ate enough to get a reasonable assessment of the scene.

If you read my review of BO’s Bagels, you know the bar has been raised. However, in the reviews ahead, you’ll see that not every bagel I ate in and around Manhattan lived up to the hype. Some were downright disappointments on par with some of the bad bagels I’ve eaten in Seattle.

It was the specific types of places that disappointed me that were most interesting. That realization also seemed to inform the ongoing annoyance I have about other cities claiming their bagels are as good as New York’s.

I think New York is hyping up the wrong bagels.

Preparing for this trip, I scoured all of the lists of NYC’s best bagels to figure out which ones made the most sense to try and eat during my limited time there. While my eventual top picks included some of the “newer” shops, like BO’s, Absolute Bagel, and Pop Up Bagels, there were also plenty of old-school shops that have stood the test of time, including Murray’s Bagels, H&H Bagels, and Russ & Daughters.

Not to drop spoilers, but most of the old-school NYC bagel places weren’t very good.

We’ll get to the details in future reviews but I found a pretty consistent throughline. Old-school NYC bagel place maintains hype thanks to historical significance. It morphs into a local chain or a wholesale/gift business (or both). The quality of the bagel drops significantly. Nostalgia and Instagram notoriety are counted on to provide cover.

I should have known. Zabar’s went down this road a long time ago. Once a bastion of the NYC bagel scene, they now shop subpar bread circles all around the world, devaluing their brand one bad dozen at a time. Still, it’s not uncommon to hear people include them in their list of must-try bagels for out-of-towners.

While I didn’t get a chance to visit too many of the newer or trendier bagel shops, the small sample size I did get told me that the quality of their bagels is simply better. Less focused on being a brand, they’re actually trying to provide the best bagel they can, and they have the lines to prove it (the line outside Absolute Bagel was intense!).

As my theory goes, while the word is getting out about those other places, it’s the old-school shops that still come up the most when people offer their recommendations for where to go and get a good bagel.

Nostalgia is a helluva drug.

And so, as my hypothesis goes, when those same people go back to their cities and try out the best their local bagel scene has to offer, they find themselves thinking “You know…these are better than the bagels I had in New York.”

That’s my theory, at least. It’s probably going to be a while before I get back to NYC, but when I do, I’ll try to cover a lot more ground with the old-school and new-school bagel shops. The more I eat, the more I can stress-test my hypothesis.

In the meantime, while nostalgia can be a good thing sometimes, be wary of it when it comes to finding a good bagel in New York City.

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