The New York bagel is dense, chewy, and boiled before it is baked, eaten the same day with a smear of cream cheese or built as a lox sandwich. A daily staple in New York City since the 1880s.
Where to eat it: 4 restaurants across 1 city.
Eastern European Jewish bakers, arriving in the Lower East Side in the 1880s, brought the boiled-and-baked bagel from Poland. The Bagel Bakers' Local 338, founded in 1907, kept production hand-rolled and unionised until the 1970s, when Lender's introduced a frozen industrial version. New York's surviving holdouts (H&H from 1972, Russ & Daughters' appetising counter since 1914, Ess-a-Bagel from 1976) hand-roll, boil in barley-malt water, then bake on burlap-lined boards. The everything-bagel seasoning, attributed to David Gussin at Charlie's Bagels in 1980, is the city's most-imitated bake.
Common allergens: Gluten
Tip from the editors. Use a tray of ice cubes on the oven floor for the first 5 minutes; the steam gives the crust its gloss.
This is the TableJourney editorial recipe, modelled on the canonical bistro / counter version. The first place to try the dish in its city of origin is below.
Russ & Daughters has slung appetising on East Houston in New York City since 1914: hand-sliced smoked salmon, sturgeon, schmaltz herring and bagels to take home.
Signature: New York bagel, Smoked salmon platter
Order: The Classic: Gaspe Nova lox, cream cheese, tomato, onion, capers on a poppy bagel.
Tip: The shop is for take-away. Sit down at Russ & Daughters Cafe around the corner on Orchard for table service.
Ess-a-Bagel on Third Avenue has hand-rolled bagels in Midtown New York City since 1976. Boiled in barley malt water, baked on burlap, sold dense and seeded.
Tip: The line is 30 minutes at 09:30 weekends. Order over the counter; pre-paid online jumps the line.
Worth the queue: Plain everything bagel with scallion cream cheese
Tompkins Square Bagels on Avenue A boils bagels at dawn in the East Village, New York City. Eight cream-cheese flavours, hot bagels until they sell out, cash counter.
Tip: Sells out by 13:00 most weekends. Lunch arrives early; the lox sandwich is built thick.
Worth the queue: Pumpernickel everything
Black Seed in Nolita bakes Montreal-style honey-water bagels in a wood oven in New York City. Smaller, sweeter, denser than the New York standard, with house-cured lox.
Tip: Mobile order is the fastest line. The beet-cured lox sandwich is the cross-style order to share.
Worth the queue: Beet-cured lox sandwich
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