Nyc-style bagels are making it big in London
LONDON>> “What’s an ‘everything
bagel’?”
It’s a question that Georgia Fenwick-gomez, an owner of Papo’s Bagels in the East London neighborhood of Dalston, hears a lot, as customers stare blankly at a menu with words including “schmear,” “scallion” and “lox.”
Papo’s is part of a wave of new shops in Britain selling New York-style bagels, distinct for being bigger, doughier and more heavily seasoned than their London counterparts. The shops have prompted curiosity and innovation, adding to London’s long history of bagels — or “beigels,” as they originally were known here.
Many of the new shops have similar stories: During the pandemic lockdowns, homesick New Yorkers in London started experimenting with bagel baking at home.
Fenwick-gomez and Gabriel “Papo” Gomez, the other owner of Papo’s, moved to England from New York in 2018.
Once the pandemic hit, Gomez, missing New York and dreaming of bagels, started watching bagel-making videos on Youtube and testing recipes.
Another bagel connoisseur, Francesca Goldhill of London, spent hours in her mother’s kitchen trying to find a recipe that produced bagels similar to those from Brooklyn Bagel, her favorite when she lived in New York. She opened Bagels + Schmear in Hertfordshire, outside London, in 2022.
Dan Martensen, a former New Yorker, opened It’s Bagels! in Primrose Hill last year, after experimenting in his kitchen during the pandemic to try to satisfy his cravings for a bagel that reminded him of home, with a “crusty, flavorful shell and a pillowy inside.”
Martensen said he delights in translating words on the menu for customers, including “scallions” (“spring onions” in British English) and “lox.” On weekends, lines for It’s Bagels! stretch around the block twice over.
Many consider the birthplace of the bagel to be Poland. The first written reference to the bagel may have been in 1610, in a document by the Jewish Council of Krakow, said Maria Balinska, author of “The Bagel: The Surprising History of a Modest Bread.” But bagels were probably popular long before then, arriving with immigrants from Germany to Poland in the 14th century, she said.
Bagels were brought to London in the 1800s by Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe, who called them “beigels” (pronounced Bye-guls), a variation that reflects a regional differentiation in the pronunciation of the Yiddish word “beygl,” said Eddy Portnoy, an academic adviser at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.
Between 1881 and 1914, the Jewish population in London’s East End tripled, and bagels were peddled in the East London streets of Petticoat Lane and Brick Lane, and in the nearby neighborhood of Whitechapel, Balinska said.
Today, the Brick Lane neighborhood of East London is home to the largest Bangladeshi community in Britain. But some bagel shops remain, using “beigel” on signs and menus. That includes two of London’s most beloved bagel bakeries, the 24hour Beigel Bake and Beigel Shop — although the Beigel Shop was closed in February. It is unclear if it will reopen.
One of the oldest family-run Jewish bakeries in London, Rinkoff Bakery in Whitechapel, was established in 1911 by Hyman Rinkoff, who emigrated from Odesa, Ukraine. Jennifer Rinkoff, head of marketing for the bakery, said she used to correct customers who said “bagel” instead of “beigel,” but now she finds herself using the American pronunciation. “We’ve kind of given up because everyone says ‘bagel,’” she said.
Although Rinkoff’s uses mostly family recipes, including original ones from her great-grandfather, she updated Rinkoff’s bagel recipe in October to make its bagels doughier and more like New York-style bagels.
Goldhill said she preferred New York bagels to London ones but added that bagels are “such a personal thing.”
She regularly encounters curious customers who ask her to explain ‘everything bagels,’ a New York concept and her bestseller. “I can’t tell you how many times I say, ‘sesame, black sesame, poppy, garlic, onion and salt’ — it literally just comes off the tip of my tongue now.”