USA A hole lot of business

New York is the centre of the bagel world — it runs rings around the rest, writes Leanne Italie

At street carts and bodegas, diners and supermarkets, nowhere is the bagel more ubiquitous than New York City. So what makes a New York City bagel good and, more importantly, where can an eager out-of-towner find the best? A few ideas . . . BLACK SEED BAGELS These are rolled by hand, boiled in honey water and baked in wood-fired ovens at three downtown Manhattan locations. They’re smaller and flatter than many of the humongous, puffy bagels around today. Black Seed is the brain child of Noah Bernamoff, who hails from Montreal, and Matt Kliegman, a native New Yorker.

The idea was to bring a touch of the Montreal bagel to New York. So what makes the Big Apple the bagel capital?

“It’s the millions of Jews who have lived and passed through the city and ultimately have taken its cultural foodstuffs to other parts of the country and the world,” said Bernamoff.

There’s no salt in their bagel dough and using honey water instead of barley malt when kettle boiling is a Montreal tradition. And there’s no yeast.

Like other top shops, the bagels are all natural. Bernamoff considers 99 per cent of the bagels in New York “poorly made”, whipped up in large commissary factories in the outer boroughs.

“They’re not very fresh. It’s round bread with barely a hole in the middle,” he said.

The two have tapped into that artisanal thing happening in foodie culture overall.

“A New York bagel purist may not appreciate our bagels,” Bernamoff said. “Because they’re baked in a wood-burning oven the exterior can be somewhat, not crispy but snappy, kind of burnished, so some people think the bagels are over-baked, but they’re not.”

If you’re in search of a cinnamon raisin or a blueberry bagel, go elsewhere. Locations: 170 Elizabeth St, 200 Vesey St and 176 First Ave in the East Village Online: blackseedbagels.com ESS-A-BAGEL This business has been around for nearly 40 years but has only one location at the moment, in Midtown, however, they’re opening a second shop further south on the East Side near their original spot close to Stuyvesant Town, said Melanie Frost, the chief operating officer.

Her late aunt, teacher Florence Wilpon, cofounded Ess-A-Bagel after Florence’s brother, Aaron Wenzelberg, lost his lease on a doughnut shop and needed a new venture.

“She combed the papers and found a bagel shop and said, ‘eh, bagels, doughnuts. They both have holes. We’ll figure it out’,” Frost says, laughing.

Now, Frost and her mother, Muriel Frost, are in charge. Their workers also hand roll. The holes are small but the bagels are big. The large size is somewhat of an accident after the family found a baker who shared his recipe, Frost said.

“They put them in the oven and for whatever reason they rose and became these huge bagels, but they worked,” she said. Are tourists bagel-schooled? “I think a lot of them don’t necessarily understand the menu,” she said.

Like Black Seed and other hot bagel spots, lines in the mornings and on weekends can be long. Location: 831 3rd Ave Online: ess-a-bagel.com KOSSAR’S BAGELS & BIALYS Take a trip to the Lower East Side for a taste of 1800s Bialystok, Poland. The neighbourhood is where people from the old country settled with their local bread, called a bialy and eaten at every meal. Bialys are bagel cousins, sort of, and this is one of the oldest bialy houses in the city.

So what’s the difference? A bagel contains malt or some form of sugar. Bialys have no sugar. Bagels are more dense and are boiled. Bialys go straight into the oven. Bialys are flatter and often topped with grated onions.

Kossar’s does bagels, too, under the watchful eye of owners who bought the place in 2013. Clockwise: A Rainbow bagel from Brooklyn’s The Bagel Store; Kossar's Bagels & Bialys; Bagel cart on a New York street; BLT bagel from Ess-A-Bagel.

One, David Zablocki, is a classically trained French chef who went in search of an old-school baker when he was testing recipes.

“A New York bagel is really a magical thing,” he said, “partly because of the water and the mineral content we have in the water. It is also the fact that we have some of the oldest recipes. There was a bagel union up until 1973 here in New York. Those trade secrets were really passed down over and over and are still alive today.”

Kossar’s bagels are baked on burlap-covered wood planks that have been soaked through in water. Other makers do that, too, but some use stainless steel forms. Zablocki said the wood helps the bagels achieve a crispy bottom and nicely browned top.

The shop, which still sells more bialys than bagels, is a stop on many guided bus tours.

Sandwich options at Kossar’s include an inverted grilled bagel stuffed with schmear with the insides out. Among his schmears is a cream cheese made with borscht. Location: 367 Grand St Online: kossars.com