Considering the New York Bagel

Strong Opinions

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Technically speaking, the best bagel in New York must exist. Somewhere in the city is a bagel that beats out all the rest.

Locating it, of course, wouldn’t be easy. You’d have to take a systematic approach. You’d have to, say, eat a bagel every morning for a year. Maybe two years. Preferably around 6 AM, when the first batch is fresh out of the oven.

Over the course of your endeavor you’d run into all the different species of New York Bagel. There’s the classic bagel, which has a shining, shellac-like exterior and has risen to such scale that it has sealed off its own center hole.

There’s the hand-rolled bagel, which is smaller and denser and chewier, as if it has been smushed, and is particularly suited to bagel sandwiches, if you’re into that kind of thing.

There’s the tourist bagel, which resides in those generic delis with stock photos of gyros on their windows. It’s actually a Thomas brand bagel that has been taken out of its sleeve, and is being sold to out-of-town suckers as the genuine article.

There’s the bialy, which is not technically a bagel, but which you should try a few times anyway for research purposes, with lots of butter.

You may, at some point, run into a “flagel”—a portmanteau of “flat” and “bagel,” so named because of its resemblance to a flatbread. Fans of the flagel praise its crispy texture and slim profile, but let us be perfectly clear: a flagel is not a bagel. It is an abomination, a glorified cracker, and you must avoid it at all costs. If you encounter a flagel in the wild, don’t be lured in by its novelty. Get a proper bagel. And if, while you’re in line, a fellow customer orders a flagel, make a mental note. That person is not to be trusted.

A bagel without cream cheese is a tragedy, so let us discuss schmears. There are a few acceptable options. Plain, of course, reigns supreme. Lox cream cheese is excellent. Veggie cream cheese, against all odds, is very good. If you have a sweet tooth, strawberry cream cheese is tasty.

Everything-flavored cream cheese is preposterous; just get an everything bagel. Blueberry cream cheese is also a miss (although blueberry bagels are superb). Pumpkin cream cheese infiltrates shops across the city every October. As with most autumnal gimmicks, it’s best left alone.

Some places offer Oreo cream cheese, which is surely a sign of impending societal collapse.

I hope it goes without saying that you should never ask for low-fat cream cheese. It’s indecent behavior. If you’re going to get a schmear, you must go all the way. In the world of cream cheese there can be no half measures.

I mentioned earlier that you could spend years eating your way across New York’s bagel shops. You would no doubt enjoy yourself, though you might, at some point, want to take up jogging.

Or you could just listen to me, because I’ve already found the best bagel in New York. I’ve been eating it for close to two decades. It’s at La Bagel Delight in Brooklyn—122 7th Avenue, to be exact—and it’ll cost you $3.75 if you get it with cream cheese (which you should). If that seems pricey, consider that admission to the Sistine Chapel is $21. You can experience a similar sense of awe at La Bagel for a fifth of the cost.

If you don’t make it there? Well, the good news is that there are a hundred other magnificent bagel places in New York. Catch me on an honest day—one when I can divorce myself from my nostalgia—and I may even admit that a lot of those shops are as good as La Bagel Delight. In fact, it’s hard to get a bad bagel in New York. I don’t know why they’re so superior. The prevailing theory is that there’s something special about New York water—some mystical balance of mineral content that produces perfect chew. That would explain why the pizza crust is so good too.

Whatever the reason, one thing is certain: the New York bagel is one of humanity’s great achievements, and you should aim to ingest one as soon as is reasonably possible.

I’ll close with a final thought, aimed at you lucky souls who have yet to enjoy a New York bagel. If you find yourself in doubt about your order—perhaps while standing at the counter, under the scrutiny of a foot-tapping employee—you can’t go wrong with the classic: a plain bagel, fresh out of the oven, with cream cheese. It’s iconic, it’s humble, and it’s as close to culinary perfection as you’ll experience in this lifetime.