Can I find a good Seattle bagel at... Westman's Bagel and Coffee (Capitol Hill)

Talk about a shanda...

Welcome to It’s A Shanda, one Northeastern Jew’s quest to find a decent bagel in Seattle (and beyond). If you’re interested in taking this journey with me, make sure you subscribe so you never miss a review. If you want to make sure I review any specific bagels (or want to let me know why I’m wrong), you can email me at seanmatthewkeeley@gmail.com.

I was always destined to write a newsletter about bagels.

It’s a project that has existed in some form in my mind for years. When I lived in Chicago, I created a Google spreadsheet where I tracked every bagel I’d eaten, complete with scores for how they looked, how they tasted, and whether or not they put oats on their everything bagel (long story). My idea at the time was to pitch the idea of trying to find a legitimately good bagel in Chicago as an article but I didn’t get any bites.

But I should back up for a second because there are plenty of people who will tell you that, yes, you can find a good bagel in Chicago. And, in fact, some of them are as good as the bagels you’ll find in New York City.

And that thesis, right there, is the actual reason why this newsletter was eventual.

There’s an inevitability when it comes to every city’s bagel scene. At first, it might just consist of a couple of random bagel shops. There might be a poppyseed-infused pop-up or two. Then, a hipster chef opens a “Jewish-style deli.” And then a local bread place branches out with a bagel store of their own. By the time a trendy online-only bagel service arrives, you’ve got yourself a full-on bagel scene.

And if everyone decided to say, “Hey, we do our best and we’re pretty happy with our bagel scene,” that would be lovely. But as we all know, that’s not what everyone decides to say. Sooner or later, someone comes along and says “[CITY’S] bagels are just as good, if not better than, New York.”

And I gotta tell you, it annoys the hell out of me every time I see it. Because I know in my heart it’s not true.

AND AGAIN, I’m not saying your city can’t have decent bagels. But when it comes to saying that, pound for pound, our bagels are on par with Northeastern bagels, that is, and I cannot stress this enough, not true. It just isn’t.

(And I know what you’re gonna say. They proved the whole “New York’s bagels are better because of the water” thing is made up. But don’t you see how that’s worse? Because now there’s no good excuse to hide behind when your city’s bagels are mediocre.)

After I moved back to Seattle from Chicago, I held onto that idea about a bagel ranking or article. But I never really acted on it. And then I saw a headline in the Seattle Times that read “J. Kenji López-Alt says Seattle's bagels are as good as New York's.”

I’d been to a few of the places he noted as being “as good as New York’s” and I disagreed rather strongly with that sentiment. I know López-Alt has a lot of pull in the Seattle food scene and I don’t doubt his cheffy bona fides, but it was the latest version of that proclamation to light a fire under my ass to document the round bread reality.

All of which brings us here. We’ve tried the bagels at Zylberschtein's and Rachel’s, two places that are supposed to rival the Northeast, and they did not. Now it’s time to try Westman’s Bagel and Coffee, a walk-up window establishment that tries to find a balance between old-school bagels and schmears and modern vegan offerings. It’s an admirable effort, but are the bagels behind this burgeoning restaurant empire worthy of their New York-style reputation? Let’s find out.

And if you want to know how I define a good bagel, you can find that here.

WHAT I ORDERED

• Untoasted everything bagel with scallion cream cheese.

• Untoasted plain bagel as-is.

THE EXPERIENCE

Westman’s, started by restaurateur Monica Dimas in 2018, eschews the traditional deli setup for a walk-up window that has a lot of charm. It’s one of many spots in Dimas’s Seattle food empire and seems to have gained a reputation over the years for selling out of bagels due to demand and offering an array of vegan spreads mixed with traditional deli treats.

Many people have taken to the internet to say that the Westman’s staff can have a Soup Nazi-esque demeanor so you better know what you want, but I actually found it to be quite the opposite. They were extremely friendly, happily answered my questions, and seemed to be thriving in the Saturday morning rush.

I ordered my usual, but in retrospect, I wish I hadn’t purposefully said I wanted the everything bagel untoasted. I would have been curious to see if they automatically toasted it or even gave me the option. We’ll get to why in a minute.

UPON FIRST GLANCE

The plain bagel was very shiny and uniform. It lacked any blistering on top but did appear to have a crunchy bottom. The size of the bagel was what you might expect, though there was a strange firmness on the touch.

The first thing I noticed about the everything bagel was that it was cold. Like, noticeably cold. When I would touch the ample toppings, there was a slight squishiness. That’s odd. It’s the kind of feel you’d expect from a day-old bagel, not from a Saturday fresh-made one.

TOP

As noted, the top of the plain was uniform and very shiny. As expected, it didn’t provide much crunch on the bite.

And as for the everything bagel, I liked the look of the seasoning, which did include salt, thank god. But the squishiness was a bit off-putting and also made me wonder if what I thought was happening was actually happening.

INSIDE

The inside of the plain bagel felt firm and certainly not pillowy. The bite was dense. Oddly, I could almost detect a cinnamon raisin smell, which isn’t what you want when you order a plain.

As for the everything bagel, I want to shout out that this is the first scallion cream cheese that I’ve had on this quest that actually offered legitimate scallion flavor. It was loaded with scallions as well, instead of just hinting at it.

That said, the staleness of the bagel’s interior confirmed for me what the squishy exterior seemed to suggest. This was a day-old bagel, served up on a Saturday morning under the assumption that it was freshly made.

Talk about a shanda.

BOTTOM

The bottom of the bagel appeared to offer some much-needed crunch but there wasn’t any there in the end. The bite on the bottom didn’t differ from the top all that much.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Look, I’m just one guy eating two bagels to determine if a place is actually as good as people in Seattle want it to be. I get that my singular experience doesn’t encapsulate everything a place like Westman’s has to offer. But that’s also not what I’m attempting to do. I just want to find a good bagel. And I don’t know much, but if a place in New York or New Jersey served up stale bagels on a weekend morning without telling people, they’d be out of business in a month.

Is It Good Enough For The Goys?

It appeared to me that Westman’s not only had a solid grasp on the Capitol Hill locals market but also pulled in a lot of tourists. And I can see why. Their larger menu offers some unique options and much-needed vegan offerings for those who want a traditional experience (which is what we’re all after, ultimately). Maybe it’s all that other stuff that helps mask the quality of the bagel. Maybe their bagel is what a lot of people think a good bagel is supposed to be like because they’re never actually had a legit one. Maybe it’s both. But something tells me Westman’s will be just fine.

Is It Good Enough For Northeastern Jews?

If the day-old stale bagel didn’t disqualify Westman’s Bagels from consideration in this category, I certainly didn’t think much of the plain bagel as-is either. I think I’d even go as far as to say the Rachel’s plain was better, which is not something I was expecting.

It’s only three places down, but my hope of finding a bagel “as good as, if not better than, New York,” is rapidly diminishing.

Thanks for actually reading this far. If you enjoyed my Seattle bagel review and want to read more of them, make sure you’re subscribed to It’s A Shanda. Know someone in the Greater Seattle Area (or beyond) who would appreciate way-too-detailed reviews of local bagels? Forward the link their way.