Ranked by TableJourney editorial score.
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.
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.
4 editor picks for New York bagel in New York City, ranked by editorial score. All New York City signature dishes · New York bagel across every city.
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.
OrderThe Classic: Gaspe Nova lox, cream cheese, tomato, onion, capers on a poppy bagel.
TipThe 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.
TipThe line is 30 minutes at 09:30 weekends. Order over the counter; pre-paid online jumps the line.
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.
TipSells out by 13:00 most weekends. Lunch arrives early; the lox sandwich is built thick.
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.
TipMobile order is the fastest line. The beet-cured lox sandwich is the cross-style order to share.
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