Boichik Bagels brings its renowned bagels to Larkspur
For a bagel connoisseur like Emily Winston, founder of Berkeley-born Boichik Bagels, there are a few particulars that divide the very best from the so-so.
The New Jersey native opened her fourth bagel shop earlier this month amidst downtown Larkspur's row of whitewashed stores and restaurants beneath the redwoods on the south end of Magnolia Avenue.
She brings with it a reputation for putting California on the best-places-for-bagels map, most notably highlighted in a 2021 New York Times headline, “The Best Bagels Are in California (Sorry, New York).” The writer goes on to assert that “Emily Winston's bagels are some of the finest New Yorkstyle bagels I've ever tasted. They just happen to be made in Berkeley.”
Although Winston was accustomed
to a reliable selection of good bagels in her childhood hometown in New Jersey, the food memory that is most indelibly etched in her mind comes from the West Side of Manhattan, home of the original (nowclosed) H & H Bagels.
This special occasion spot
instilled in her a bagel obsession that held strong even after a move to California in 2010. And when the Golden State proved lacking in suitable counterparts, Winston applied her Cornell University degree in mechanical engineering to replicate “the holy grail” of bagels.
“I like to tinker and see how things work and make stuff,” says Winston about her fiveyear quest to recreate the memory. “That's why it took so long.”
How does Winston describe the perfect H & H bagel?
“It's the texture and ingredients,” she says. “It's on the sweeter end of bagels, which is pronounced and unique to H & H.”
Winston uses organic malt extract and brown sugar in her bagels and employs what she calls “the lick” to assure that the proper flavor profile has been achieved. “I have a memory of licking the outside of a bagel before biting into it and it having a particular flavor. That's what I wanted.” It also has a leathery versus a crunchy or crispy crust. “All of the pieces need to come together to make it feel right.”
Has she succeeded in reaching her goal?