Best Bagels in New York

It is no secret that the favorite delicatessen food of New Yorkers is the oh-so-delicious and chewy bagel. At one point of time bagels was considered to be bland and uninspiring breakfast food that was made somewhat palatable by the addition of cream cheese and lox. Today, walk into any bagel shop and you are bound to see more bagel flavors than you can possibly taste in one life time. In addition, there are more people who’ve become partial to bagels since they’ve now begun to be used as a base for sandwiches.

A long standing debate that has raged between two groups of New Yorkers is whether bagels should be toasted or not. While most of them incline towards not toasting a fresh bagel (they say there is no need for it!), some prefer their bagels to be toasted to a crisp. Well, whether you like it chewy or crunchy, large or small, doughy or dense, New York has the finest establishments for all kinds of bagels.

Daniel’s Bagels (569 3rd Ave. between 37^th & 38th Sts.) is a short walk away from the Grand Central and considered the bagel Mecca of New York. Don’t bother to ask them to toast it for you, because they won’t. However, their bagels are small, and made the traditional style – crisp on the outside and chewy and dense on the inside. After you choose a bagel for yourself, proceed towards selecting the ingredients for your sandwich from among the rows of cheese, cold cuts, whitefish salad, and smoked salmon. As you enjoy and savor their classic bagels, you know your day has already started off well!

Yet another place that refuses to toast their bagels is Tal Bagels, their logic being that you’d never really need to toast fresh bagels, only stale and bad ones. Therefore, don’t cast aspersions on the quality of their bagels by asking for them to be toasted. They’ve got several outlets in New York – 333 East 86th St. between 1^st and 2^nd Ave., 2446 Broadway (90th), and 977 1st Ave. between 53^rd and 54^th. So, wherever you might be, a bagel from Tal Bagels is never far away from you.

When talking of bagels and New York City, you have to pay homage to H&H Bagels (2239 Broadway, at 80th Street), the largest bagel manufacturer in NYC. If you are fond of the larger, fluffier, and doughier variety of bagels, you will love the ones that you find here. Their “Everything Bagel” that has a mixture of garlic, onion, sesame, poppy seed, and a whole bunch of other things is a popular favorite.

Feeling hungry already? Well, roll out of your bed or get up from your chair, head over to the nearest bagel joint, pick out your favorite, choose your fillings, have a sandwich made, open your mouth wide, take a bite, chew on it, relish the taste and thank your stars that you are in the land that’s overflowing with delicious bagels!

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