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 ★ 4.9
lower-east-side · 179 East Houston Street, New York, NY 10002
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.
Ess-a-Bagel ★ 4.6
midtown · 831 3rd Avenue, New York, NY 10022
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.
Tompkins Square Bagels ★ 4.4
east-village · 165 Avenue A, New York, NY 10009
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.
Black Seed Bagels ★ 4.3
nolita · 170 Elizabeth Street, New York, NY 10012
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.