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The Best Bagels in New York City Right Now
A working ranking of the best bagels in New York City — hand-rolled, boiled, wood-fired, and the shops keeping the tradition alive.
The best bagels in New York City argument never ends, which is exactly how a New Yorker knows the conversation is a real one. Everyone has a shop. Everyone knows the shop three blocks from that shop is worse. Both people are usually right.
What actually makes a great New York bagel
Before naming names, it’s worth being specific about what people mean when they say a bagel is good. The classic New York style is a boiled bagel with a chewy interior, a shatter-crisp crust, and enough structure to hold half a pound of cream cheese without collapsing. A bagel that’s more like a bread roll with a hole is a bread roll with a hole. Boiling is not optional. The window between hot-out-of-the-oven and stale is short — a good bagel is best inside four hours of coming out.
The best bagels in Manhattan
Absolute Bagels on the Upper West Side has been the answer for a decade, and even with the ownership change it still delivers. Get a plain or an everything, get the tuna salad, and eat it on the street. Ess-a-Bagel on Third Avenue is the other Manhattan classic — bigger, more filling-heavy, and the smoked fish counter alone is worth the trip. If you’re downtown, Tompkins Square Bagels on Avenue A does a very solid poppy and their flavored cream cheeses are actually good, which is rare.
Brooklyn’s answer to the Manhattan classics
Bergen Bagels in Prospect Heights and Fort Greene keeps the borough well-supplied with a chewy, thick-crusted bagel that holds its own against anyone in Manhattan. Terrace Bagels down in Windsor Terrace is a neighborhood spot that outsiders don’t know about, but the everything bagel there might be the best in the borough. Baz Bagel on Ludlow crosses back over, but their everything with scallion cream cheese is a strong pick if you want a downtown option.
The wood-fired newcomers reshaping the scene
For years, “artisanal bagel” was a phrase that made purists roll their eyes. Then Apollo Bagels, PopUp Bagels, and Bagel Point started serving wood-fired, small-batch bagels that are unashamedly different — puffier, more open crumb, closer to what a Montreal bagel does with the New York silhouette. Purists will complain. They should also try one. The everything at Apollo, warm, with a schmear of cultured butter, is worth going out of the way for.
Best bagel shops for smoked fish
If the bagel is the vessel, the fish is the point of the meal. Russ & Daughters on Houston is the temple — the sable, the gaspé nova, the whitefish salad. Get the classic on an everything bagel and stop pretending you were going to order anything else. Barney Greengrass on Amsterdam is the uptown answer, and the sturgeon there is legitimately the best in the city. Sunny & Annie’s — a deli, not a bagel shop — makes a bagel breakfast sandwich that has kept the East Village fed for years.
What to order and what to skip
Order a plain, an everything, or a sesame. Any other flavor is a distraction. Cream cheese should be plain, scallion, or vegetable — anything sweeter is a bagel-adjacent product. Smoked salmon on the bagel means nova or belly, not lox (which is saltier and more traditional but rarer). Get it toasted only if it’s been out for more than an hour — a fresh bagel does not need toasting and asking for it will earn you a look.
When to buy and how to keep them
Best bagels are hot bagels. Go before 10 a.m. on a weekend if you want the peak experience. If you’re bringing home a dozen, do not slice them until you’re ready to eat them, and freeze whatever you won’t eat within a day — a frozen bagel toasted from frozen is markedly better than a stale one revived. Wrap in foil, not plastic.
Once you’ve built your loyalty to a shop, you have a lifelong argument on your hands. If you want to keep exploring the city’s morning food scene, our guide to the best brunch spots in the West Village picks up where the bagel run leaves off. Every shop mentioned above is on the NewYorkEatsguide map.
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