Lox Bagel Platter appears as a signature dish in 1 United States cities. See each city's local variant and where to eat it.
Lox and bagel platter · New York City
The appetizing platter is a New York Jewish-deli ritual: a hand-sliced bagel topped with cream cheese, ribboned cold-smoked salmon (lox), shaved red onion, capers and tomato. Saturday brunch in a single bite.
The lox bagel emerged on the Lower East Side in the early 20th century as Jewish-immigrant appetizing stores refined a way to use the briny cold-smoked salmon shipped down from the Pacific Northwest packing trade. Russ & Daughters opened in 1914 on Orchard Street and pioneered the hand-sliced, paper-thin Gaspe Nova-style cut that defines the platter. Zabar's brought the same template uptown to the Upper West Side in 1934. The appetizing tradition (dairy and smoked-fish under kosher law) made the lox-bagel-and-shmear a Saturday-morning institution that survived as a New York identity marker long after most appetizing stores closed.
Where to eat in New York City:
- Russ & Daughters
- Russ & Daughters Cafe
- Zabar's