NYCGuide
The Best Bagels In New York City
photo credit: Alex Staniloff
New Yorkers are privileged to live in a city with an outstanding volume (and history) of bagels. Even the run-of-the-mill bodega bagel is a dream compared to what you’ll find at dedicated bagel stores and bakeries in many other cities. But we're here to tell you about New York City's best bagels—the ones that have been around since the 1950s, as well as the newcomers that are making their mark on a city already known for bagels. You’ll find those—the city’s best bagels—below.
THE SPOTS
photo credit: Alex Staniloff
If we had to pick one bagel to reign supreme over all of its New York City carbohydrate kin, it’s the untoasted everything bagel with scallion cream cheese from Absolute Bagels on Broadway and West 108th Street. Tiny and round like a softball, each springy dough globe you’ll find here has a blistered bottom. The dough itself tastes malty and sweet, like it had a daydream years ago about being a dessert. But the real magic is how the bagel's subtle sweetness is counteracted by the salty garlic everything seasoning that adheres to the exterior. Absolute Bagels also makes fantastic Thai iced tea—the place was founded by Sam Thongkrieng, who moved from Bangkok to NYC in the ’80s and worked at Ess-A-Bagel for years.
photo credit: Will Hartman
Apollo in the East Village is a bagel shop with the look of a clean industrial kitchen. You won’t find crates of bagels cooling in a display case up front, or an entirely separate and (hopefully) refrigerated case of schmears and smoked fish salads. But you will find bagels served hot out of the oven, that makes a sound like popping bubble wrap as you tear into them, burning your fingers in the process. Apollo started as a pop-up from the sourdough pizza-experts at Leo, and their bagels are tangy, chewy, and structurally sound enough to hold up their loaded whitefish and lox sandwiches—though we'd recommend ordering your bagel with a separate tub of cream cheese. Remember to breathe while having a primal bread moment on the sidewalk.
photo credit: Carina Finn
Popup Bagels started in a backyard in Connecticut, which helps explain why they don’t adhere to any specific regional style. Made fresh throughout the day, these bagels are extremely fluffy on the inside, with a thin, flavorful, blistered crust—designed to be ripped apart and dipped in schmear. You can get pints of schmear on the side, as well as a worthwhile whitefish salad. There’s no seating, but it doesn’t matter, because these bagels are best enjoyed on the sidewalk just outside the shop while they’re still hot. Pre-order a dozen different ones online, or wait in line to pick up an order of three or six.
You can’t come to Utopia in Whitestone and not get an everything toasted with cream cheese. The place has been around since 1980, cooking all the bagels in a carousel oven from 1947. And the ones they’re serving up are an exercise in balance. The everything seasoning doesn’t completely overpower the surface of the bagel, which itself is slightly chewy, not too puffy, and has a perfect cream cheese ratio, so there’s no spill-over from the sides when you take a bite.
photo credit: Team Infatuation
For better or for worse, this Queens bagel shop that’s been open since 1961 will linger in your mind years after you go there. That’s because their bagels have a completely different texture and mouthfeel than most of their New York City counterparts. They’re inexplicably light and toast-like. Bagel Oasis bakes their bagels at such a high temperature that tiny air bubble bumps form on the outside. If you like bagels with a little less chewiness and a little more delicacy, these will be your favorite.
photo credit: Kate Previte
The Russ & Daughters bagel experience should not exist without smoked fish. Please, we repeat, please, order a bagel with some sort of fish topping or at least a side of their excellent hot-smoke cold-smoke salmon combination dip to dunk your bagel into. The near-translucent nova at this 1914 Lower East Side appetizing institution is sliced so fine that a puppet master could use it as a backdrop for casting shadows. Russ & Daughters’ white-coated staff expertly layer the soft, pliable fish drapings onto sturdy, comparatively small bagels, which act as the ideal mattress for all of the toppings. Russ & Daughters also has three cafés with seating: in Hudson Yards, on the LES, and the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
photo credit: Willa Moore
Wheated has convinced us: if you make sourdough pizza, you should probably make sourdough bagels, too. The Ditmas Park pizza spot turns into a bagel shop on weekend mornings, and it feels like you’ve stumbled into a tavern that just so happens to be making the chewiest bagels you’ve had in a while today. Get a dozen, and both the pickled jalapeno and burnt scallion cream cheese. They also bake fresh biscuits smothered in sausage gravy, if you’d like to spend a lazy Sunday morning eating multiple forms of carbohydrates at one of the tables—if not, just get a $3 cup of sausage gravy to go when picking up your bagels.
photo credit: Hannah Albertine
Let the record show that Empire Bagels in Pelham Bay deserves to be on several guides in addition to the Best Bagels in NYC. Including but not limited to: The Lightest Cream Cheese In NYC, The Best Takeout Window Parallel To The Above-Ground 6 Train, and The NYC Spot You’ll Want To Visit At 6am. If you grew up eating massive, buoyant bagels in Jersey, you’ll feel at home at this bagel place in the Bronx. Their versions are puffier than the average New York City bagel, with a shiny caramelized exterior and an extra fluffy inside. Empire Bagels is open from 5am to noon every day, and they only serve bagels, cream cheese, coffee, juice, and a few pastries. Come early. If you show up later than 11am, they might be out of your favorite bagel varieties.
photo credit: Daniel Brennan
In 2011, someone with experience at places like Kossar’s, Zabar’s, and Eleven Madison Park opened a bagel and appetizing shop with a seafood expert who used to work at a market called Fish Tales. That’s the story of Shelsky’s, and it partly explains the time-tested technique behind these airy bagels and their fixings. The bagels at this store on Court Street in Cobble Hill all have at least a couple of air pockets and a caramelized exterior. If you want to keep things simple and fishy, get the classic “Member Of The Tribe,” which comes with nova and plain or scallion cream cheese (you want scallion) on a bagel or bialy. But we also love the pastrami smoked salmon. If you live closer to Park Slope or Gowanus, Shelsky’s has a second location there.
photo credit: Daniel Brennan
The bagels at Tompkins Square Bagels in the East Village may appear gargantuan, but they pass the smush test with flying colors. These springy, air pocket-laden, kettle boiled bagels are ideal for sandwiches, which is why this is one of the few bagel shops where we recommend ordering a BEC. If you’re a cream cheese purist, prepare to be offended by Tompkins Square Bagels’ chocolate chip cookie and chipotle avocado varieties in the refrigerator case in front of the counter. But make no mistake, the straightforward bagels are the reasons this place always has a line in the mornings.
H&H Bagels has been making bagels in Manhattan since 1972, and, as far as we know, it’s the only spot on this list mentioned in both Seinfeld and Sex & The City. Carrie and George aside, these rotund bagels follow the textbook New York style. Each one is swirled with a dark, caramelized sheen, and is loaded with tiny air holes where the gluten has formed. The sparsely-seasoned exterior makes for a hearty chew while the dough stays soft and malleable. Plus, there’s an excessive amount of cream cheese slathered in between the two halves.
We get that people will always have their preference between toasted and untoasted. It’s the New York bagel equivalent of Fender vs. Gibson, skinny jeans vs. wide-leg jeans, or excessive throw pillows vs. not-excessive throw pillows. But we urge any toasted truthers to try an untoasted, plain bagel from Leo’s in Fidi. It’s one of the puffier bagels out there, and it has a pleasantly gooey chew, while the bottom remains partially crispy. Our order also includes scallion cream cheese, featuring scallions that are actually crunchy, as well as the very salty belly lox that ties everything together.
photo credit: Noah Devereaux
If you want a bagel with as much puff as it has history, head to Ess-A-Bagel. The original location opened in 1976, but now they’re slinging their big, doughy bagels out of a location in Midtown. And when we say these bagels are big, they’re about the size of the wheels on a tricked out Tonka Truck—only these are filled with a perfect ratio of cream cheese to fluffy dough and have a bubbly crust that’s still chewy and a little crispy.
Bagel Hole keeps things plain and simple. This tiny Park Slope bagel shop has been baking the same eleven flavors of hot kneaded bread since it first opened in 1985. Our favorite is the everything with cream cheese, which is a textbook example of a golden brown shell, chewy white center, and crunchy edges that give you a satisfying cracking sound with every bite. But no matter which bagel you choose, know that this place refuses to toast. And don’t be discouraged by the fact that these run small—that just means you’ll have more room to take down a salt bagel with lox spread and the pumpernickel with butter in one sitting.
Walk into Bagel Pub in Crown Heights on a Saturday morning, and you might feel a bit overwhelmed. The folks behind the counter are simultaneously slicing bagels and taking names, patrons stand in two separate lines glued to their phones, and an Ariana Grande song from 2010 will probably be blasting from the sound system. But once you taste the thick bagels, you’ll thank yourself for pushing through. Exceptional spread options like za’atar cream cheese aside, the airy bagels from this Brooklyn mini-chain will bring you more joy than at least two or three of your current friendships. And even though it gets busy at Bagel Pub, the bagels typically come out piping hot.
photo credit: Daniel Brennan
Greenberg’s is more than just an excellent bagel shop. It’s the place to be on a weekend morning in Bed-Stuy (or in the West Village, where they have a second location). Walking by this spot any time after 8am on Saturday is like passing Pier 59 during NYFW—from microscopic Telfar bags to sunglasses bigger than ski goggles, trends are on full display. Other than to people-watch, come to Greenberg’s for thin and soft bagels that taste like they were baked a few moments before they reached your mouth. The sausage, egg, and cheese sandwich is excellent with an added hashbrown. The crunch from both the crispy bagel and fried potatoes combination will likely pop up every once in a while in your daydreams.
photo credit: Dane Isaac
Harlem may have only one fresh bagel shop, but oh what a bagel shop it is: the kind where you always leave with way more bagels than you planned to buy. Behind the giant bagel hanging in the window is a full-fledged baking operation where the chewy-on-the-inside, subtly-crispy-on-the-outside bagels are made from scratch. There are more than a dozen varieties, from the traditional to the slightly more adventurous (pumpernickel cranberry, za’atar). Choose from all types of cream cheese or specialty sandwiches, like the Nacho Camacho with chili, jalapeño cream cheese, lettuce, and tomato on a three-cheese bagel. If you’re further uptown, they have a newer second location in Washington Heights.
photo credit: Neha Talreja
The first thing you’ll notice when you approach the counter at Dyker Park Bagels is the intriguing cream cheese collection. We like the rich bacon and cheddar (preferably on a weekend when we don’t have to function at our desk afterward) or the rainbow sprinkle cream cheese for a full-on dessert situation. But our go-to is a gourmet, salty slather of pimento and green olive cream cheese on one of their chewy and crispy sun dried tomato bagels. There are a few great bagel shops in the area, but the thinner, lighter bagels here are our first choice.
photo credit: Neha Talreja
When we’re in desperate need of a BEC, it can be hard for us to drag ourselves the extra few feet (or train stop) to get one at a bagel shop rather than our bodega. But if you live by David’s Bagels in Gramercy, a breakfast sandwich on one of their fluffy, Tempur-Pedic bagels is worth the extra effort. The pumpernickel has a deep, musky flavor and stays soft and springy even after you toast it, and they have whole wheat options that we appreciate for not being too sweet. Plus, the bagels are huge, which makes them appealing for sandwich orders.
photo credit: Kate Previte
Terrace Bagels in Windsor Terrace makes the kind of fluffy, flavorful bagel that New York ex-pats dream about after they’ve moved away. There’s nothing too cool or overly fussy about this spot, and that’s exactly what makes it special. The flavors here, both in terms of bagels and cream cheese, are pretty traditional. Our favorite pairings are the blueberry bagel with strawberry cream cheese, which tastes like eating a bag of Starburst candy for breakfast (in a good way) and the pumpernickel bagel with olive pimento cream cheese when we’re in a more savory mood.
