Salt beef bagel
Photo: Wikimedia Commons · Public domain

Salt beef bagel is a signature dish of United Kingdom; we have verified places to eat it in London. Brined and slow-cooked salt beef brisket, hand-sliced thick onto a boiled-and-baked bagel with English mustard and pickled cucumber. Start with where to eat Salt beef bagel in London.

Salt beef bagel · London

Brined and slow-cooked salt beef brisket, hand-sliced thick onto a boiled-and-baked bagel with English mustard and pickled cucumber. A Brick Lane lunch from a 24-hour counter since 1974.

Eastern European Jewish migrants brought the boiled-and-baked bagel and the brined-brisket tradition to Whitechapel and Spitalfields from the 1880s. The Beigel Bake on Brick Lane (1974) and the rival Beigel Shop next door (1855, the older of the two) sell the form that London adopted: dense hand-rolled bagel, hot pink salt beef sliced to order at the window, English mustard and pickled cucumber, cash and card, 24 hours. Cabbies, theatre staff and clubbers anchor the queue from midnight onwards. North London delis like Reuben's and Brass Rail in Selfridges sell the upmarket sit-down version.

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