New York-style bagels? Let's go straight to the source

All bagel newsletter roads lead to New York City.

Credit: Flowcomm (CC BY 2.0)

Welcome to It’s A Shanda, one Northeastern Jew’s quest to find a decent bagel in Seattle (and beyond). Along with free bagel reviews every Sunday, we also offer bonus posts each Wednesday. If you’re already subscribed, I hope you’ll consider upgrading to a paid subscription! Thank you for reading.

You don’t write a bagel newsletter without referencing New York often.

In fact, this newsletter doesn’t exist if I hadn’t grown up in the shadow of NYC and the ample bagel bounty found within. Otherwise, I don’t carry that nosh nostalgia with me as I make my way across the country, listening to people tell me their bagels are the best bread products since sliced bread, feeling the need to prove it wrong.

All of that said, I have to admit that I’ve grown attached to the Seattle bagel scene. The animosity I felt from hearing our local offerings are “just as good as NYC” has subsided (somewhat) as I’ve gained an appreciation for the handful of bagels that legitimately measure up.

I’ve done enough reviews at this point to where it’s starting to get challenging to make sure I’m holding every place to the same standards. Not just in terms of contrasting each bagel shop to one another, but also in terms of remembering the bagels back east that inspired me to want to spend an inordinate amount of my life writing about bread circles.

Sometimes, a gut check is necessary to ensure that you’re not ranking gut bombs incorrectly. You need to return to the source.

So that’s what I’ll be doing, spending some time in New York City in the coming days. And while I’m there, you know that I’m going to eat a bunch of bagels.

But which ones?

Ask 20 New Yorkers what the best bagel in town is and you might get 20 answers. We all know the staples: Zabars, Russ & Daughters, Tompkins Square Bagels, and Ess-a-Bagel. But much like here in Seattle, New York has been going through a bagel renaissance of its own in recent years. There’s been a steady stream of trendy bagel joints that have the kind of hype that makes the Howdy Bagel line seem quaint.

I don’t want to just consider the same-old, same-old, but given my short amount of time in town, I know that I am going to have to think critically. As much as I might want, my entire trip can’t be about eating bagels. I have to make some tough choices about which bagel spots to consider so I don’t mess up and pull a Michael Scott:

The goal is to try and get a general sense of the 2023 New York City bagel scene as much as possible. That’s a hard ask when I’m probably only going to have time to visit three or four shops, but I want to try, dammit.

I decided to employ a “highly intricate mathematical system” to figure it out. This highly intricate system had me scour the internet for as many notable sources of NYC’s best bagels that I could find, list out every bagel place that they namecheck, and then take note of which ones get mentioned the most.

I ended up sorting 28 NYC bagel places for potential consideration. Of those 28, 10 made the final cut for trip consideration.

For posterity, here’s the list of the bagel places that didn’t make it past the first round, but deserve notice for making it that far: Bagel Talk, Between the Bagel, Hudson Bagel, Brooklyn Bagel, Bagels & Schmear, Modern Bread and Bagel, Zucker's Bagels, Zabars, Black Seed, Orwashers, Sadelle's, Kossar's, Liberty Bagels Midtown, David's Bagels, Bagel Shop, Bagels & Schmear, and Chelsea Bagel.

For the 2nd round of cuts, I trimmed every bagel place that didn’t show up on at least 60% of my ranking sources. That meant we lost Tal Bagels, Russ & Daughters, H&H Bagels, Baz Bagel, and Leo’s Bagels.

I was left with five bagel shops to consider. Of the five, three of them showed up in every single ranking that I came across. The other two came up in most of them. At this point, the game was clear to me. I decided that I would definitely go to the three places that NYC’s finest bagel reviewers have deemed as must-haves, with the understanding that, time permitting, I will also try to visit the others.

Ess-a-Bagel. Credit: Dion Hinchcliffe (CC BY 2.0)

The standby bagel shops? Ess-a-Bagel and Tompkins Square Bagel.

The must-visit bagel shops? BO’s Bagels, Absolute Bagels, and Murray’s Bagels.

I’m pretty excited about how this all broke down. Left to my own devices, I probably would have stuck to the old stalwarts, and the two standby bagel shops are exactly that. But I am very intrigued with how this trio rose to the top and are all universally considered can’t-miss considerations.

For BO’s Bagels, I need to travel to Harlem where I’ll find the much-hyped shop “started by Andrew Martinez and Ashley Dikos after many years of living in Harlem and not being able to find a decent bagel.” They’ve got quite the list of bona fides and accolades already for a place that opened in 2016.

Absolute Bagels in the Upper West Side has plenty of accolades of its own, which is understandable since it was started by Sam Thongkrieng, who learned his bagel trade at Ess-a-Bagel. An old-school, cash-only joint where the bagels are “generously proportioned,” “glossy,” and “often delivered still warm, rendering toasting unnecessary?” Yes, please.

Down in Greenwich Village, Murray’s Bagels has gained a pretty solid reputation for having some of the best bagels in the city. According to Eater NY, they’re “large but light bagels with a crackly crust and modest interior chew.” Food & Wine notes that “the argument could be made that Murray's bagel—too big, and typically a bit sweet—just isn't what it used to be.” Looks like I’ve got an important job to do.

I should also note that almost all of the rankings I used to formulate these choices didn’t have the recently opened PopUp Bagels, which has become so popular that they have to provide line updates on social media. I’ll try to swing by that place to see what all the fuss is about, but if the line stretches around the block, I’m out.

If there’s time… Credit: ajay_suresh (CC BY 2.0)

Of course, there could be curveballs. I might happen across a bagel place that I hadn’t considered and try it on a whim. I might not be able to make one of the three mentioned above and have to call audible.

And then there’s where you come in. If I’ve learned anything, it’s that everyone who reads this newsletter has their own strong opinions about bagels, especially New York ones. So if you’ve got a bagel place in mind that I absolutely, positively have to visit, let me know. Share in the comments or send me an email. I’ll take them all into consideration.

Thanks for actually reading this far. Know someone in the Greater Seattle Area (or beyond) who would appreciate way-too-detailed reviews of local bagels? Please forward the link their way.