There are few things New Yorkers like to argue about more than bagels.
These bready beauties have been getting bigger and fluffier for the past couple of decades, with the traditional methods (hand-rolled in ropes, cold-fermented overnight, baked on a burlap board) changing to accommodate new generations of New Yorkers and their tastes. And there are those who would say the city’s buzziest versions are hardly bagels at all.
Some of the choices below (listed in alphabetical order) are true-blue New York versions; others are far from it. Some are great on their own, while others truly shine in sandwich form. They may be the ones you loved as a kid, or from that shop you’d never set foot in. Of course, you’re well within your rights to disagree — what’s more New York than that?
Upper West Side
2788 Bagels
The cash-only Absolute Bagels was an Upper West Side staple from 1992 until its unceremonious closure in 2024. It’s back now — and now named 2788 Bagels — under different ownership and with a makeover. (They now take credit cards as well.) The new bagels seamlessly take up the mantle as the best in the area: an extraordinary golden crust with a honeycomb-like crumb.
2788 Broadway (108th Street), Manhattan; no phone; no website
Multiple locations
Apollo Bagels
Are Apollo bagels technically even bagels? There’s certainly an argument to be made either way. They are none of the things that make a New York bagel. But, made with sourdough and shaped with a hole-poking method that yields a bigger gap, they are the best representation of the new-school variety of taut, tangy, bubbly bagels, with a true shell of a crust. Perhaps to avoid further straying from tradition, there’s not much funny business with the flavors (plain, sesame, everything), or the spreads (butter, cream cheese, whitefish salad).
Multiple locations; 844-218-3081; apollobagels.com
Greenpoint
Bagel Joint
Most of the menu at Bagel Joint seems as if it belongs on my list of Franken-bagels. The couple that runs the shop in Greenpoint is turning out bagels flavored with miso, gochujang and duck eggs; topping them with yellowfin tuna sausage and bacon; and slathering them with wasabi schmear. It’s no surprise those get the most attention, but their traditional bagels (really, they can do tradition — hand-rolled, kettle-boiled, baked on bagel boards) stand alone, classically perfect and equally deserving of fanfare.
230 Calyer Street (McGuinness Boulevard), Brooklyn; no phone; instagram.com/bageljointny
Fresh Meadows
Bagel Oasis
Right off the Long Island Expressway and mostly bodega-presenting, Bagel Oasis in Fresh Meadows, Queens, has been making excellent bagels since 1961. The crust on each bagel is so distinctive, nearly shattering, that they need no more than cream cheese to shine. The shop also churns out thoroughly seeded flagels (a 1990s invention), and forearm-size braided bagel twists worth picking up. They’re all best enjoyed with a coffee as big as a paint bucket and a couple of scratch-offs for the road.
183-12 Horace Harding Expressway (184th Street), Queens; 718-359-9245; bageloasis.com
Bushwick
Bake Shop
Bake Shop, an offshoot of the Little Cupcake Bake Shop chain, is a bit of a sleeper hit for fans of a dense, chewy bagel, without much in the way of topping options. The shop, in Bushwick, Brooklyn, feels like a place where you should stick to a vegan pastry; a sugary smell and an oddball painting of Bernie Sanders preside over the room. But the bagels, baked in small batches behind the counter, have the kind of taut interior and nearly tough crust that evoke the bagels of yore.
995 Flushing Avenue (Bogart Street), Brooklyn; 718-381-3706; littlecupcakebakeshop.com
Midtown | West Village
Best Bagel and Coffee
Midtown is a neighborhood that needs great bagels, both to power the minds of corporate office workers and to salve the horrors of the daily commute. Best Bagel is, indeed, the best for those use cases. The bagels are big — a Victorian-era New Yorker would have been stunned by the size — with a wonderfully chewy, twisty exterior and, in some cases, no hole to be found. And the shop, in perfect Midtown fashion, is a well-oiled machine with a managed line that moves eagerly to send each patron off with a hot bagel breakfast.
Multiple locations, Manhattan; 212-564-4409; bestbagelandcoffee.com
NoHo
Bub’s Bakery
In a shocking turn of events, the gluten-free bagel at Bub’s Bakery, when toasted to order, can play ball with the rest of the bagels on this list. (The allergen-free bakery also avoids nuts, soy and dairy.) By some cryptic chemistry, a combination of ingredients like brown rice flour, cornstarch, and roasted potatoes, when toasted, manages to deliver a Montreal bagel-like crumb and a crackling, malty crust.
325 Lafayette Street (East Houston Street), Manhattan; 646-449-8814; bubsbakery.com
Park Slope
Caputo Bagels
If the name Caputo sounds familiar, it’s probably because you’ve been to Caputo’s Bake Shop sometime in the last 122 years. After the shop closed in the spring, the fifth-generation owner made a pivot to bagels, serving chewy, deeply golden-crusted specimens with the sourdough from his family’s bakery. For now, they’re making plain, sesame, olive and everything bagels, and one wild card: a smaller, darker number that’s actually a lard bagel studded with bits of provolone, chunks of salami and a throat-tickling amount of black pepper. It’s an ode to the famous loaves Caputo’s used to sell, with a beautifully tender crumb and fricolike caramelized cheese on the crust.
81 Fifth Avenue (Prospect Place), Brooklyn; 347-464-3323; caputobagels.com
Sunnyside
Curley’s Bagels
These might be the most beloved bagels in Sunnyside. (While I was commuting on the No. 7 train with a Curley’s bag, a fellow rider took out their AirPods to gush to me about them.) In a neighborhood that the owner Mark Curley described as a former “bagel desert,” they’re untraditional on most fronts — made with sourdough, steamed instead of boiled, rolled by a bagel-forming machine and available in flavors like rosemary salt and cranberry-orange — but they eat like classic New York-style bagels. The dough has striations as if hand-rolled, they’re well-seasoned and the outsides are appropriately blistered.
43-04 47th Avenue (43rd Street), Queens; 718-333-5950; curleysbagels.com
Prospect Heights
Gertie
Formerly an all-day cafe in Williamsburg, Gertie reopened last year in Prospect Heights as a counter-service bagel shop with shelves of Jewish tchotchkes, bottled cocktails and a big, serene backyard. The restaurant has since perfected its bagels, which are hand-rolled throughout the day, falling squarely into the big-and-fluffy camp. While not large like some others in the city, they come out nearly orblike, warm and well-seasoned throughout, a strong vessel for Gertie’s homemade salads and pickled-pepper-topped breakfast sandwiches.
602 Vanderbilt Avenue (St. Marks Avenue), Brooklyn; no phone; gertie.nyc
Bushwick
Knickerbocker Bagel
Knickerbocker Bagel is one of the better-organized bagel shops, an efficiency that helped solidify it as a Bushwick favorite. The bagels are well suited to sandwiches: big, but not dauntingly so, with a squishable, tender interior and a chewy crust that doesn’t interfere much with a bacon, egg and cheese. It’s a worthy place to take anyone, including unorthodox folks who like quirked-up cream cheese (jalapeño Asiago, for example) and bagel sandwiches with any manner of deli meat.
367 Knickerbocker Avenue (Stockholm Street), Brooklyn; 718-709-8888; kbbagel.com
Midtown| Financial district | Jackson Heights
Liberty Bagels
Liberty Bagels, with locations in the financial district, Midtown and Jackson Heights, Queens, produces huge bagels, bigger than most diner hamburgers, that are shockingly fluffy and easily deflate upon being punctured. They fall squarely in the soft, doughy-interior camp, but with a firm, well-seasoned crust. It’s worth nothing that Liberty also calls itself the “home of the rainbow bagel,” a fad with a longer-than-expected tail, but you shouldn’t let that deter you from an otherwise wonderful, and more appropriate, everything bagel.
Multiple locations, Manhattan and Queens; 212-279-1124; libertybagels.com
Multiple locations
PopUp Bagels
The bagels at this Connecticut-based chain are controversial. PopUp’s shtick: hot bagels (directly-out-of-the-oven-into-your-bag hot), never sliced (they suggest you “rip and dip” your bagel in spread), no toppings (but you can get a side of cream cheese, butter and rotating specialty versions of both). These are not New York bagels, by any stretch of the imagination. The writer Charlotte Druckman even called them “chubby pitas” in a recent newsletter bemoaning the current state of the bagel. But they are bagels, they are in New York and they are delicious. And they’re popular. PopUp’s shops are multiplying like rabbits, with locations downtown, on the Upper East and Upper West Sides, and soon in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
Multiple locations; 203-297-8819; popupbagels.com
Lower East Side | Brooklyn Navy Yard | Hudson Yards
Russ & Daughters
Make no mistake, Russ & Daughters is an appetizing shop that makes bagels, rather than a bagel shop. That’s to say that while the bagels are fine on their own, they’re designed to be used for bagel sandwiches, with smoked fish so thinly sliced you can see through it. (How many fingers am I holding up?) The original Lower East Side location is the way to go for the experience, which involves standing in front of cases of fish, clutching your number slip and urgently awaiting your turn to order. When that time comes, go with the Boychik, with smoked salmon and sable and plain cream cheese on an everything bagel.
Multiple locations; 212-475-4880; russanddaughters.com
Park Slope
Shelsky’s Brooklyn Bagels
Shelsky’s exists to combat the “shiksa bagel,” as one of its ad campaigns described bagels made without commitment to New York tradition. The owners opened it in 2018, deciding to make their own bagels after six years of buying them for their Cobble Hill appetizing shop. The bagels are small, with a strong emphasis on the crust. “I would never do a rainbow bagel. A blueberry bagel is not a thing,” said Peter Shelsky, a co-founder. Even so, they do make a salt-and-pepper bagel “au poivre,” and a tingly, excellent bagel with Sichuan peppercorns, a play on the longstanding relationship New York Jews have with Chinese food.
453 Fourth Avenue (10th Street); 718-855-8817; shelskys.com
Upper East Side | Lower East Side
Tal Bagels
At Tal, there’s never a lull in the process of making great bagels. Signs in their stores read “hot bagels (10 to 12 minutes),” and they really mean it. At times, the bagels come out so steamy, they disintegrate the paper bag they’re served in. As a general rule, all bagels are great when hot, but Tal’s pass the real test. Even after they’ve cooled down over the course of a commute, their crust is thin, bubbly and crackly, giving way to that ideal New York chew.
Multiple locations; ordertalbagels.com
Park Slope
Terrace Bagels
Everything about Terrace Bagels is charming: the location (a block from Prospect Park’s Bartel-Pritchard Square), the logo (a jaunty anthropomorphized bagel), the coffee station (weak hot coffee, but also nitro cold brew on tap). Above all, it’s producing, to my mind, the Platonic ideal of a bagel. The size isn’t daunting, the crumb is airy but not bready, the crust is chewy but not a chore. It’s not my local bagel, but it’s a bagel that could make me consider relocating.
222 & 222A Prospect Park West (Windsor Place); 718-768-3943; terracebagels.com
East Village | Flatiron district | Upper East Side | Union Square
Tompkins Square Bagels
Tompkins Square Bagels makes bagels for sandwiches. They’re huge, sometimes so fluffy they lose the hole entirely, and function more like rolls than anything else. The list of sandwiches at all three locations is biblically long and, in many cases, surprisingly delicious — the Weezer, with bacon, chorizo, eggs, Cheddar and cream cheese, is perfect, squished into a warm sesame bagel. But if you’re a bagel purist, avert your eyes from the tub of birthday cake-flavored schmear.
Multiple locations; 646-351-6520; tompkinssquarebagels.com
Whitestone | Midtown | Long Island City
Utopia Bagels
The original location of Utopia Bagels in Whitestone, Queens, is a scene, and has been since 1981. The line moves quickly, and the people in the open kitchen move even quicker, in a constant state of churning out malty bagels with a remarkable crunchy shell and a chewy crumb. Utopia’s pride and joy is the carousel oven that’s been turning for decades, but they’re evidently not too proud to modernize on other fronts. Their TikTok presence is notably active, and bagel flavors include prosciutto, piña colada and red velvet. They also offer vegan replacements for egg, bacon, sausage and cheese.
Multiple locations; utopiabagelsny.com
The post The Best Bagels
