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Bagel and lox sandwich from Russ & Daughters
A bagel with lox from Russ & Daughters.
Russ & Daughters

The Best Bagels in New York City

The city’s top bagels keep evolving

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A bagel with lox from Russ & Daughters.
| Russ & Daughters

The bagel may or may not have been invented by Germans living in Poland in the 14th century, but here, it’s associated with Jewish American cuisine, as well as being one of the city’s most iconic foods. Revered by people all over the country, it’s rare to find a faithful duplication elsewhere. True bagels are boiled briefly before being baked. (Turn one over: If it has a grid pattern on the bottom, it was first steamed rather than boiled.) Chewy, glutinous, and highly caloric, a lone bagel is a meal and a very satisfying one, especially when schmeared with cream cheese and layered with lox or another form of cured fish.

Even today the bagel continues to evolve, as several points on this map will demonstrate. Here are some favorites, including a Mediterranean precursor to the bagel and some stunt bagels, all good enough to be wolfed down whole without any topping at all.

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Mike's Bagels

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This bare-bones bagel shop is a favorite of Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center employees and others that pass through what amounts to Washington Heights’ downtown. Poppy and whole wheat bagels are favorites, and nothing makes a better breakfast that the dark and slightly sweet pumpernickel bagel thickly spread with egg salad.

Two halves of a bagel made into a sandwich with yellow egg salad.
Pumpernickel bagel with egg salad at Mike’s.
Robert Sietsema/Eater NY

Bo’s Bagels

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This shop was started by Andrew Martinez and Ashley Dikos in 2017 to address a lack of great bagels in Harlem. The result is a shop with bagels that have a crisp exterior and chewy inside, made the traditional way with a 24-hour fermentation, brief boil, and bake. All the classic spreads are available, as well as aggressively creative bagel sandwiches like the Andrew — featuring egg, sausage, bacon, Vermont maple syrup, and scallion cream cheese.

A glass counter with bagels in baskets and two employees by the register to one side.
The bagel case at Bo’s in Harlem.
Robert Sietsema/Eater NY

Absolute Bagels

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Come lunchtime, this barn of a bagel bakery boasts lines that trail out the door, the customers eager for a taste of its bulbous and reasonably priced bagels, often delivered still warm, rendering toasting unnecessary. The bagels at Absolute are a bit larger than average and glossy from their boil. The bright orange egg bagel is a favorite, and so is the everything bagel, best spread with the salty and smoky whitefish salad for an explosion of flavor.

A man in a new year’s hat smiles behind a bagel counter.
The bagel display at Absolute Bagels.
Robert Sietsema/Eater NY

Bagel Talk

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Sure, Zabar’s and its stellar smoked fish are just around the corner, but the bagels here have a better chew. The place throngs with customers excited for any of the bagel sandwiches, from the standard bacon, egg, and cheese to those with whitefish or cream cheese and lox. Despite having a no-toasting policy for years, owner Abid Islam now grumpily allows it.

Rows of browned bagels still in the oven.
Everything bagels at Bagel Talk.
Bagel Talk

Between the Bagel

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Locals rave about the bagels at this Astoria institution, and New Yorkers make pilgrimages from other boroughs to snag them. The range of bagels is vast. On a recent visit Asiago and jalapeno sesame bagels were available, and the roster of cream cheeses and other miscellaneous toppings is just as robust, sometimes with Korean flourishes.

A brown seeded bagel with a thick layer of flavored cream cheese.
Whole wheat everything at Between the Bagel.
Robert Sietsema/Eater NY

Lots O Bagels

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This Astoria bakery also promises lots of cream cheese flavors. In fact, so profuse are the number of choices that some of them are fruit flavored and decidedly sweet, allowing the unrestrained seekers of bagel-as-dessert to construct such admitted monstrosities as the rainbow bagel with strawberry cream cheese. Sorry, I couldn’t help myself, but it was actually a fun antidote to the bagel’s savory excesses.

A multicolored bagel with pink cream cheese between the two halves.
The rainbow with strawberry cream cheese — yes, it’s sweet, but maybe better for you than a doughnut.
Robert Sietsema/Eater NY

Hudson Bagel

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In the contemporary fashion, the bagels are big at this very modest West Village store, with clear, distinct flavors. A sunflower seed bagel, for example, features a scatter of untoasted and unsalted seeds, making a bagel that’s not only beautiful to look at, but with a subtle flavor seen few other places. The cream cheese collection is distinctive, too, including lots of low-fat varieties among the dozens of choices.

Two bagels in a bicycle basket.
Egg and sunflower bagels from Hudson Bagel.
Robert Sietsema/Eater NY

Brooklyn Bagel & Coffee Company

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Despite its name, Brooklyn Bagel doesn’t have a Kings County location — instead there are five spread across Queens and Manhattan. The Astoria outpost is super popular, frequently boasting long lines for their gigantic, airy bagels. They also serve a mini bagel, probably about the size bagels were a century ago. Also note the varied collection of cream cheeses, and rotating stunt specials like gingerbread, seven grain, and sundried tomato bagels.

A pair of bagels held in two hands with thumbs sticking through the holes.
Seven-grain and sun-dried tomato bagels at Brooklyn Bagel.
Robert Sietsema/Eater NY

Tal Bagels

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Lox, nova, and smoked salmon aren’t the same thing — and Tal Bagels is the place to find out why, with a comprehensive menu that boasts all three. With six locations across Manhattan and too many cream cheese options to count, Tal has earned itself a reputation as one of New York’s favorite bagel shops for its hot bagels and fast service.

A red awning and a table with two diners sitting in front.
The East 86th Street location of Tal Bagels.
Robert Sietsema/Eater NY

Ess-a-Bagel

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This classic New York bagel shop, which first opened in 1976 near Stuyvesant Town. Today, this location still slings big, chewy, crusty bagels. In fact, some blame the original shop for originating the modern gigantic bagel. It can take awhile to pick up an order for sandwiches or a bagel with lox, but people looking to grab bagels and cream cheese can sneak to a separate counter.

An assortment of well browned bagels in a tray that cuts diagonally across the frame.
An assortment of Ess-a-Bagels.
Robert Sietsema/Eater NY

Bagels & Schmear

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This relative newcomer to Kips Bay (in bagel years) has become a reliable brunch spot and long lines form on the weekends. It offers a broad range of bagels and spreads for its small size, including salt and garlic, in the former category, and strawberry, olive, and lox in the latter. Bagels are big and of average squishiness.

Four differently colored bagels in a diamond pattern.
Four bagels from Bagel & Schmear.
Robert Sietsema/Eater NY

Modern Bread and Bagel

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This bakery is indeed modern, exclusively making gluten-free bagels that aren’t half bad. Indeed, everything in the place is gluten free. The salads that can be put on bagels are innovative and often delicious, including a Tel Aviv-style egg salad, chopped fine and heavily herbed, and a tuna salad that replicates the recipe of France’s vaunted Tunisian sandwich.

A bagel on a dark gray counter with a plastic tub of egg salad.
A gluten-free bagel and egg salad.
Robert Sietsema/Eater NY

Murray's Bagels

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Open since 1996, Murray’s was born out of a desire for a superior neighborhood bagel shop in Greenwich Village. The result is a space with large but light bagels with a crackly crust and modest interior chew. Beyond standard cream cheeses, cured fish, and egg fillings, Murray’s specialty is substantial meat and poultry sandwiches, made from salami, hot corned beef, chicken cutlets, and just about any deli meat or fish salad one can think of.

A split bagel filled with glistening pink corned beef.
Murray’s epic hot corned beef on an untoasted garlic bagel.
Robert Sietsema/Eater NY

Tucked away on a residential side street of Greenpoint is Bakeri, a small-batch bakery that turns out Norweigan skølebrod, German chocolate cake, and loaves of sourdough rye each morning. Those items and the many others made here are worth a trip on their own, but the bagels are a total sleeper hit. Dense, squat, and baked to the point of almost looking burnt, Bakeri’s bagels are deeply flavorful and come speckled with bits of cornmeal underneath. The cinnamon raisin is best, made with a generous portion of gold and purple fruit that keeps this bagel moist and acidic.

A hand holds a bitten bagel studded with pieces of corn meal on a sunny day.
A cinnamon raisin bagel from Bakeri.
Luke Fortney/Eater NY

Tompkins Square Bagels

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Bagel purists may not like this place in the East Village, with its rainbow of cream cheese options, but it has a devoted following at this and its other East Village location for a reason: a massive variety of menu items, some frankly weird, that’ll satisfy any appetite. It is often the only bagel place out-of-town friends have heard of, and expect to find the latest food fads executed in bagel form.

A bagel store interior with all sorts of pastries displayed and line of customers waiting to order.
Expect a line at Tompkins Square Bagels.
Robert Sietsema/Eater NY

Bagel Point

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This Greenpoint corner bagel shop has a history dating back to 1977, but you’d never know it for the postmodern fixtures, which make you feel like you’re ordering bagels on the Starship Enterprise. So step up to the plasma ordering kiosk and opt for a plain bagel with green-olive cream cheese, which is absolutely delicious.

A girl with a backpack stands before an ordering panel.
Beam me up Scottie!
Robert Sietsema/Eater NY

Forest Hills Bagels

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Head for Forest Hills Bagel for a more comfortable bagel experience. The interior is laid out like a diner, and an opulent counter display offers a large range of flavored cream cheeses and their surrogates, including low-fat dairy spreads and those made from whipped tofu. The bagels remain the focus, however, with a very nice cinnamon raisin for sweet bagel lovers, and poppy and sesame bagels that don’t stint on the seeds.

A cinnamon raisin bagel is cut in half with cream cheese at Forest Hills Bagel in Queens.
A cinnamon raisin bagel from Forest Hills Bagel.
Robert Sietsema/Eater NY

Russ & Daughters

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For the better part of the last 100 years, the only way to get a bagel at Russ & Daughters was to wait in line — out the door and around the corner. Today, this New York institution has two additional locations, each with a slightly different focus, at the Brooklyn Navy Yard and on Orchard Street. Their bagels and bialys are soft and chewy, but sturdy enough to hold their own against toppings like cream cheese, smoked fish, or pastrami-cured salmon.

Bagels in various forms hang from baskets on the wall of Russ & Daughters.
Find bagels and bialys at Russ & Daughters.
Bess Adler/Eater NY

Bagels for You

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This modest Forest Hills bagel bakery does little to advertise itself, offering a broad range of cream cheeses and perhaps the city’s best garlic bagel. (What are its features? The garlic is neither rancid nor overcooked.) Apart from that, the shop offers a handful of stunt combinations, including a blueberry bagel with scallion cream cheese that isn’t half bad.

Baskets of bagels on the wall some empty.
Bagels run out fast at Bagels for You.
Robert Sietsema/Eater NY

Bread Brothers Bagel Cafe

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This East Williamsburg spot can’t decide if it wants to be a bodega or a bagel bakery. Luckily, the bagels are damn good in all the usual permutations, which are alternated, so that the selection on any given day may be limited to six. This will help you make a decision. The lox and scallion cream cheese are a particular delight, while the everything pumpernickel offers something lesser-seen, even if it’s a little sweet.

A hand holds a ark bagel sprinkled with seeds.
The pumpernickel everything bagel is on the sweet side.
Robert Sietsema/Eater NY

Bagel Nest

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The wall of bagels against the barn wood wall is reason enough to enter Bed Stuy’s best bagel store and take a gander. But the bagels are pretty damn good, too, including a very salty salt bagel, a garlic bagel that will leave you breathing fire, and a chocolate chip bagels in which there are enough chips to make it taste slightly sweet but not a bit like dessert.

A light colored plank wall with hooks sticking out on which colorful bagels are displayed.
The colorful bagel display at Bagel Nest.
Robert Sietsema/Eater NY

Bagel Pub

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This small chain of Brooklyn bagel shops turns out bagels with lots of chew, perfect for an egg and cheese sandwich or good enough on their own. Breakfast sandwiches are available in myriad forms, including those with hash browns, turkey bacon, and chipotle cream cheese. Expect a line that snakes toward the door on weekends, with a selection of inventive bagels — egg everything, pumpernickel everything — visible in a row of stainless steel baskets that are regularly replenished.

A hand clutches a yellow bagel adorned with red onion, tomato, and chipotle cream cheese.
Chipotle cream cheese is one of a handful of inventive options at Bagel Pub.
Luke Fortney/Eater NY

Shelsky's Brooklyn Bagels

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Modernist bagel shop Shelsky’s has all the classics in small, dense form, but it sports a few spicy outliers, like its numbing Sichuan peppercorn bagel and chili crisp cream cheese. Indicative of the appetizing shop’s contemporaneity, the preparation of the bagels here shows extra care: A sourdough starter is employed in the kitchen, actual egg goes into the the egg bagels, and chopped cheese and Taylor ham sandwiches come served on a bagel or bialy.

Bagel cut in half with cream cheese in the middle.
Shelsky’s everything bagel with cream cheese.
Carla Vianna/Eater NY

Terrace Bagels

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This bagel shop sandwiched between Prospect Park and Green-Wood Cemetery ensconced in a double storefront produces one of the city’s broadest range of bagel flavors and a correspondingly large array of cream cheeses. One of our favorites is the egg everything bagel, which enriches its multiple herbal flavors with egg; another is the cinnamon raisin bagel with a sweetened cinnamon crust on the outside, a combo that can reasonably be termed a dessert bagel.

Three bagels, one crusted with cinnamon, on a gray tabletop.
Plain, cinnamon raisin, and egg everything bagels.
Robert Sietsema/Eater NY

Bagel Supreme

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This Bay Ridge bakery offers a bagel so big and bulbous the holes have nearly disappeared, and one is almost enough to be shared by two. The shop furnishes views of the nearby Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, and there’s a park across the street where you can eat your purchases in fine weather. (It also sells subs on rolls baked on the premises.) Its most unusual product is the french toast bagel, which is sweet, sticky, and covered in powdered sugar.

Three bagels pressed tight in a triangle formation.
Salt, plain, and French toast bagels at Bagel Supreme.
Robert Sietsema/Eater NY

Mike's Bagels

This bare-bones bagel shop is a favorite of Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center employees and others that pass through what amounts to Washington Heights’ downtown. Poppy and whole wheat bagels are favorites, and nothing makes a better breakfast that the dark and slightly sweet pumpernickel bagel thickly spread with egg salad.

Two halves of a bagel made into a sandwich with yellow egg salad.
Pumpernickel bagel with egg salad at Mike’s.
Robert Sietsema/Eater NY

Bo’s Bagels

This shop was started by Andrew Martinez and Ashley Dikos in 2017 to address a lack of great bagels in Harlem. The result is a shop with bagels that have a crisp exterior and chewy inside, made the traditional way with a 24-hour fermentation, brief boil, and bake. All the classic spreads are available, as well as aggressively creative bagel sandwiches like the Andrew — featuring egg, sausage, bacon, Vermont maple syrup, and scallion cream cheese.

A glass counter with bagels in baskets and two employees by the register to one side.
The bagel case at Bo’s in Harlem.
Robert Sietsema/Eater NY

Absolute Bagels

Come lunchtime, this barn of a bagel bakery boasts lines that trail out the door, the customers eager for a taste of its bulbous and reasonably priced bagels, often delivered still warm, rendering toasting unnecessary. The bagels at Absolute are a bit larger than average and glossy from their boil. The bright orange egg bagel is a favorite, and so is the everything bagel, best spread with the salty and smoky whitefish salad for an explosion of flavor.

A man in a new year’s hat smiles behind a bagel counter.
The bagel display at Absolute Bagels.
Robert Sietsema/Eater NY

Bagel Talk

Sure, Zabar’s and its stellar smoked fish are just around the corner, but the bagels here have a better chew. The place throngs with customers excited for any of the bagel sandwiches, from the standard bacon, egg, and cheese to those with whitefish or cream cheese and lox. Despite having a no-toasting policy for years, owner Abid Islam now grumpily allows it.

Rows of browned bagels still in the oven.
Everything bagels at Bagel Talk.
Bagel Talk

Between the Bagel

Locals rave about the bagels at this Astoria institution, and New Yorkers make pilgrimages from other boroughs to snag them. The range of bagels is vast. On a recent visit Asiago and jalapeno sesame bagels were available, and the roster of cream cheeses and other miscellaneous toppings is just as robust, sometimes with Korean flourishes.

A brown seeded bagel with a thick layer of flavored cream cheese.
Whole wheat everything at Between the Bagel.
Robert Sietsema/Eater NY

Lots O Bagels

This Astoria bakery also promises lots of cream cheese flavors. In fact, so profuse are the number of choices that some of them are fruit flavored and decidedly sweet, allowing the unrestrained seekers of bagel-as-dessert to construct such admitted monstrosities as the rainbow bagel with strawberry cream cheese. Sorry, I couldn’t help myself, but it was actually a fun antidote to the bagel’s savory excesses.

A multicolored bagel with pink cream cheese between the two halves.
The rainbow with strawberry cream cheese — yes, it’s sweet, but maybe better for you than a doughnut.
Robert Sietsema/Eater NY

Hudson Bagel

In the contemporary fashion, the bagels are big at this very modest West Village store, with clear, distinct flavors. A sunflower seed bagel, for example, features a scatter of untoasted and unsalted seeds, making a bagel that’s not only beautiful to look at, but with a subtle flavor seen few other places. The cream cheese collection is distinctive, too, including lots of low-fat varieties among the dozens of choices.

Two bagels in a bicycle basket.
Egg and sunflower bagels from Hudson Bagel.
Robert Sietsema/Eater NY

Brooklyn Bagel & Coffee Company

Despite its name, Brooklyn Bagel doesn’t have a Kings County location — instead there are five spread across Queens and Manhattan. The Astoria outpost is super popular, frequently boasting long lines for their gigantic, airy bagels. They also serve a mini bagel, probably about the size bagels were a century ago. Also note the varied collection of cream cheeses, and rotating stunt specials like gingerbread, seven grain, and sundried tomato bagels.

A pair of bagels held in two hands with thumbs sticking through the holes.
Seven-grain and sun-dried tomato bagels at Brooklyn Bagel.
Robert Sietsema/Eater NY

Tal Bagels

Lox, nova, and smoked salmon aren’t the same thing — and Tal Bagels is the place to find out why, with a comprehensive menu that boasts all three. With six locations across Manhattan and too many cream cheese options to count, Tal has earned itself a reputation as one of New York’s favorite bagel shops for its hot bagels and fast service.

A red awning and a table with two diners sitting in front.
The East 86th Street location of Tal Bagels.
Robert Sietsema/Eater NY

Ess-a-Bagel

This classic New York bagel shop, which first opened in 1976 near Stuyvesant Town. Today, this location still slings big, chewy, crusty bagels. In fact, some blame the original shop for originating the modern gigantic bagel. It can take awhile to pick up an order for sandwiches or a bagel with lox, but people looking to grab bagels and cream cheese can sneak to a separate counter.

An assortment of well browned bagels in a tray that cuts diagonally across the frame.
An assortment of Ess-a-Bagels.
Robert Sietsema/Eater NY

Bagels & Schmear

This relative newcomer to Kips Bay (in bagel years) has become a reliable brunch spot and long lines form on the weekends. It offers a broad range of bagels and spreads for its small size, including salt and garlic, in the former category, and strawberry, olive, and lox in the latter. Bagels are big and of average squishiness.

Four differently colored bagels in a diamond pattern.
Four bagels from Bagel & Schmear.
Robert Sietsema/Eater NY

Modern Bread and Bagel

This bakery is indeed modern, exclusively making gluten-free bagels that aren’t half bad. Indeed, everything in the place is gluten free. The salads that can be put on bagels are innovative and often delicious, including a Tel Aviv-style egg salad, chopped fine and heavily herbed, and a tuna salad that replicates the recipe of France’s vaunted Tunisian sandwich.

A bagel on a dark gray counter with a plastic tub of egg salad.
A gluten-free bagel and egg salad.
Robert Sietsema/Eater NY

Murray's Bagels

Open since 1996, Murray’s was born out of a desire for a superior neighborhood bagel shop in Greenwich Village. The result is a space with large but light bagels with a crackly crust and modest interior chew. Beyond standard cream cheeses, cured fish, and egg fillings, Murray’s specialty is substantial meat and poultry sandwiches, made from salami, hot corned beef, chicken cutlets, and just about any deli meat or fish salad one can think of.

A split bagel filled with glistening pink corned beef.
Murray’s epic hot corned beef on an untoasted garlic bagel.
Robert Sietsema/Eater NY

Bakeri

Tucked away on a residential side street of Greenpoint is Bakeri, a small-batch bakery that turns out Norweigan skølebrod, German chocolate cake, and loaves of sourdough rye each morning. Those items and the many others made here are worth a trip on their own, but the bagels are a total sleeper hit. Dense, squat, and baked to the point of almost looking burnt, Bakeri’s bagels are deeply flavorful and come speckled with bits of cornmeal underneath. The cinnamon raisin is best, made with a generous portion of gold and purple fruit that keeps this bagel moist and acidic.

A hand holds a bitten bagel studded with pieces of corn meal on a sunny day.
A cinnamon raisin bagel from Bakeri.
Luke Fortney/Eater NY

Tompkins Square Bagels

Bagel purists may not like this place in the East Village, with its rainbow of cream cheese options, but it has a devoted following at this and its other East Village location for a reason: a massive variety of menu items, some frankly weird, that’ll satisfy any appetite. It is often the only bagel place out-of-town friends have heard of, and expect to find the latest food fads executed in bagel form.

A bagel store interior with all sorts of pastries displayed and line of customers waiting to order.
Expect a line at Tompkins Square Bagels.
Robert Sietsema/Eater NY

Related Maps

Bagel Point

This Greenpoint corner bagel shop has a history dating back to 1977, but you’d never know it for the postmodern fixtures, which make you feel like you’re ordering bagels on the Starship Enterprise. So step up to the plasma ordering kiosk and opt for a plain bagel with green-olive cream cheese, which is absolutely delicious.

A girl with a backpack stands before an ordering panel.
Beam me up Scottie!
Robert Sietsema/Eater NY

Forest Hills Bagels

Head for Forest Hills Bagel for a more comfortable bagel experience. The interior is laid out like a diner, and an opulent counter display offers a large range of flavored cream cheeses and their surrogates, including low-fat dairy spreads and those made from whipped tofu. The bagels remain the focus, however, with a very nice cinnamon raisin for sweet bagel lovers, and poppy and sesame bagels that don’t stint on the seeds.

A cinnamon raisin bagel is cut in half with cream cheese at Forest Hills Bagel in Queens.
A cinnamon raisin bagel from Forest Hills Bagel.
Robert Sietsema/Eater NY

Russ & Daughters

For the better part of the last 100 years, the only way to get a bagel at Russ & Daughters was to wait in line — out the door and around the corner. Today, this New York institution has two additional locations, each with a slightly different focus, at the Brooklyn Navy Yard and on Orchard Street. Their bagels and bialys are soft and chewy, but sturdy enough to hold their own against toppings like cream cheese, smoked fish, or pastrami-cured salmon.