Finding good bagels in London

March 22, 2005 2:19 AM

Is there any place in west or central London to buy fresh "NY style" bagels? And is there anything to the story that bagels don't taste the same outside of NY because the water is different?

I have noticed a few chain bagel shops in UK (like the one at Heathrow) but the bagels are usually awful and don't come in many varieties. I'm looking for that classic "walk in and see loads of baskets containing various bagels preferably made that day" style place. Extra points if someone knows a place that sells salt or everything bagels.

posted by gfrobe to Food & Drink (34 answers total)

Not quite west/central, but on the Seven Sisters Rd near Finsbury Park Station (15mins from Oxford Circus) there is the 'Happening Beigel Bakery' which makes bagels fresh each day. They are also in baskets, and are 20p each for plain ones. No extra points for me, though.

There's also the 'Manhattan Bagel Bakery' further down the Seven Sisters Road towards Holloway, but I've never been in.
posted by altolinguistic at 2:50 AM on March 22, 2005

oi! bagel

Look on the locations page to find the place nearest to you. I've just road tested a sun-dried tomato bagel, with pastrami and Swiss cheese, from the shop on Fleet Street. Very nice.
posted by veedubya at 3:30 AM on March 22, 2005

There's got to be a Jewish neighbourhood in London. That's where I'd go to get good bagels. Alternatively, set up a deal with a NYC MeFite to FedEx you fresh bagels (sealed airtight, fastest delivery possible) in return for English goodies.

This may be of some help? (scroll down), or this?
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 3:31 AM on March 22, 2005

Beigel Bake, on Brick Lane. Open all night, and *tremendous*.

Note the spelling, too. It's pronounced Buy-gul, not Bay-gul. Old school, see?
posted by DangerIsMyMiddleName at 4:18 AM on March 22, 2005 [1 favorite]

excuse me, but weren't bagels invented by European Jews? if so, one should be able to find good bagels in Europe as well

/not a bagel fan
posted by matteo at 4:38 AM on March 22, 2005

The absolutely definitive bagel bakery in London is in Brick Lane, East London. It is open 24 hours and is as far as I know run by Jewish people. The quality of fillings is not up to US standard but the bagels themselves are well respected and used by many restaurants/ cafés.

I think this link references the correct shop, but there are two next to each other. One is good, one is not. You'll know when you get there!

Personally though I agree that London bagels never seem as good as New York bagels. There's a whole array of reasons why that might be: discuss amongst yourselves!
posted by skylar at 4:41 AM on March 22, 2005

The Brick Lane Beigel Bake is ok. I live near there so I eat them probably once every few weeks. But honestly they remind me a lot of the mediocre bagels we used to get in the school cafeteria growing up on Long Island. They have a too soft texture and a mildly strange sweetness that doesn't ring true to a New Yorker. If you realize its a different interpretation of the same eastern european boiled then baked breads that a New York bagel is descended from you'll be a lot happier. Kinda like if you compared a Montreal bagel to a New York bagel and expected them to be exactly the same you would be disappointed.

Not exactly a ringing endorsement. I'd say like Mexican food, a search for a truly authentic "bagel" in London will be fruitless.
posted by JPD at 4:52 AM on March 22, 2005

And am I the only one who finds the concept of a sun-dried tomato bagel, with pastrami and Swiss cheese mildly heretical?

Of course I laugh hysterically at the EAT sandwich that is pastrami, cheese and mayo on wheat bread
posted by JPD at 4:55 AM on March 22, 2005

Oh also, Brick Lane is only plain bagels. And I beleive the predominantly Jewish neighborhoods are in the Northeast of London

And I will stop speaking now
posted by JPD at 4:57 AM on March 22, 2005

Isn't Golder's Green the predominent Jewish neighbourhood in London? I used to live in Finsbury Park and believe Golder's Green is a little Northeast of Hampstead Heath. I had to laugh at the comment about Mexican food from JBD. An American friend of mine lives there now and constantly complains about the lack of authentic Mexican. Where we're from, in Chicago, it's everywhere. Good luck with your NY bagel search!
posted by zombiebunny at 5:07 AM on March 22, 2005

JPD, I'm a chap of exotic tastes.
posted by veedubya at 5:19 AM on March 22, 2005

You can't get NY bagels outside of NY. It's that simple. I've spent years looking and eventually just moved back to the city. You can get round shaped dough things that are very very good, but they aren't NY bagels. It's all the fluoride in the water or something.

this place in Chicago even advertizes: To insure the proper taste a water purification filtration system has been installed to match the water properties of New York City. But I bet it doesn't work.

The guys at Finagle A Bagel (Boston) say they disproved that:

New Yorkers insisted that a New York style bagel could never be produced outside of the city, because New York water was the secret ingredient! Larry Smith, the founder of Finagle A Bagel, set out to disprove that claim. He toted 5 gallon buckets of Boston water to New York, and made batches of bagels with Boston water and with New York water. Side by side, not even a New Yorker could tell the difference! From that point, Finagle A Bagel began boiling and baking its own bagels.

Don't believe a word of it.
posted by CunningLinguist at 5:29 AM on March 22, 2005

No offense meant. Just that all you would need is a nice slice of bacon on that for a treif trifecta.
posted by JPD at 5:30 AM on March 22, 2005

Jewish neighborhood != Good bagels.

I work in Golders Green which is about as Jewish as it gets and you couldn't find a decent bagel here if your bar mitzvah depended on it.
On a separate note, if you're buying them from a supermarket get them from Tesco's (they're amazing) and avoid all others (specifically Sainsburys.)
posted by john-paul at 5:46 AM on March 22, 2005

Haha! I've been to that place on Brick Lane. The bagels are actually pretty decent, but I was aghast when I heard my English friends ordering their bagels with "salad," which apparently means lettuce and tomato. Huh?! The fixings and flavors aren't what you'd find in a Jewish Deli, but the basic bagel is pretty tasty.
posted by abbyladybug at 5:48 AM on March 22, 2005

Response by poster: Damn. Was just about to head out to Brick Lane when I saw JPD's comment that they only sell plain bagels. Definitely not what I was looking for. Appreciate all of the replies though.
posted by gfrobe at 6:00 AM on March 22, 2005

I once read that Frank Sinatra so missed NY style pizza that he would dispatch his private plane from LA to pick up pizzas for the weekend. Seems it would have been easier to load up on NYC water if that was the secret.
posted by terrier319 at 8:29 AM on March 22, 2005

Correct bagel types:
- Plain
- Sesame
- Poppy
- Salt
- Onion
- Everything
- Cinnamon Raisan

Incorrect bagel types:
- Sun-dried tomato
- Blueberry
- Jalapeno
- Pesto
- Anything not listed under "Correct bagel types"
posted by skwm at 8:39 AM on March 22, 2005 [1 favorite]

There's a place called Izzy's Bagels (or some variation on the name) about a block away from the Charing Cross T station. I'm hardly a connoisseur , but their wares seemed decent to me. So it might be worth checking out if you're in the area.
posted by Mayor Curley at 8:49 AM on March 22, 2005

Actually, anyone who refers to a non-Boston subway stop as a "T station" probably wouldn't recognize a good bagel if it crawled into bed with him and made rude noises.
posted by Mayor Curley at 8:51 AM on March 22, 2005

I've spent years looking and eventually just moved back to the city.

Wish all the folks who complain in DC (and in every other city apparently) that one can't get good bagels, pizza, pastrami, weed, etc, etc, etc ad nauseum would take your advice, hellcat ;)
posted by terrapin at 8:58 AM on March 22, 2005

The Famiglia pizza place here in Philly claims to bring water down from NY to make their dough.
posted by mbd1mbd1 at 9:22 AM on March 22, 2005

You missed garlic, skwm.
posted by dame at 9:53 AM on March 22, 2005

Good NY bagels have become hard to find in New York so difficulty outside is not surprising. Sorry this isn't helpful. Terrapin, in DC there are workable ones in Georgetown at Chesapeake Bagel (I think - the place with the "hot bagels" sign on M Street, but it helps to ask for "well-done" ones). If you happen to be in West Palm Beach Florida, at the "Bagel King" they have honest to god delicious NY bagels like you get at excellent NYC bagel bakeries.

I think that, like pizza, the bagel in its finest form is not available in the old country, despite the fact the the precursor food item was invented there. Italian pizza, while delicious, is not the same as NY pizza. And there simply are not that many Jews left in Europe to uphold the bagel standards.

I didn't have any good bagels in Israel last time I was there, either. You can get really good rugalach in the central market in Jerusalem, though.

I have sent a query to my agent in London regarding bagels. If anyone knows, she will.
posted by mzurer at 9:58 AM on March 22, 2005

Izzy's Bagels is a chain that has outlets in stations - I believe that there's one in King's Cross and possibly another at Euston. Perfectly nice filled bagels but again it is true that none of these is going to match a New York bagel or even one from a US chain like Noah's.
posted by skylar at 11:38 AM on March 22, 2005

There used to be a very good bagel bakery in the main concourse of Charing Cross station. However, I haven't passed through Charing X for several years, so I don't know whether it's still there. As a rule, the central London commuter-line terminals -- Liverpool St, Waterloo, Marylebone, and so on -- tend to be good places to find up-market fast food.

There's a bagel shop in Lansdowne Row (just off Berkeley St, on the south side of Berkeley Square). But it's a very small shop, little more than a kiosk really, and I don't know whether they bake the bagels on the premises. Might be worth a try, though.

Here is a useful list of Jewish bakeries in London. As you will see, most of them are clustered in the north-west suburbs: Hendon, Edgware, Golders Green. The only one I have sampled personally is the Hendon Bagel Bakery (Church Road, NW4, a stone's throw from where I grew up).
posted by verstegan at 12:04 PM on March 22, 2005

Oh - and forgive me - I think it's Ixxy's bagels....
posted by skylar at 12:36 PM on March 22, 2005

I've eaten more London bagels/bayguls/beigels than I care to admit and have to agree that Beigel Bake is fantastic when it's 2 am and there's nothing else available, but other than that, it's sub-par.

I found the best bagels, and the ones that came closest to resembling NYC bagels, to be at the Grodzinski's on Finchley Road. It's between the Swiss Cottage and Finchley Road tube stations, approximately across the street from the Argos and McDonald's. Get there in the early afternoon, which is when they tend to haul a fresh batch of bagels out of the oven.
posted by yellowcandy at 12:47 PM on March 22, 2005

I really like the Brick Lane place if only to see them being baked in the back. However this thread will inspire me to seek out better London bagels.
posted by laukf at 2:23 PM on March 22, 2005

You missed garlic, skwm.

I dunno if rye is classic but it should be. And I question cinnamon-raisin. Bleah.
posted by CunningLinguist at 6:54 PM on March 22, 2005

Yeah, I'd put pumpernickel before garlic or cinnamon raisin. But I basically stick to sesame & poppy.

Murray's makes a spinach bagel, and a bran, and probably some other heretical flavors, though they refuse to toast them, per tradition...

It's difficult enough to find proper NYC bagels in NYC sometimes, so I pity those afar on this quest. I'd say in london, just enjoy your good indian food, good chain/ take out (pret a manger, wagamama - or whatever it's called) and yr decent coffee (there are individ places in NY with good coffee, but no dependable chains when you're in midtown or whatever)
posted by mdn at 7:28 PM on March 22, 2005

I immediately am suspicious of any bagel place that tries to toast the bagel by default. Toasting is something you do to a week-old dried up bagel that you're trying to rescue from oblivion. Toasting is not something you do to a fresh, warm, soft-on-the-inside, crusty-on-the-outside bagel.

(My favorite shop makes a lovely spinach feta bagel. Heretical, maybe... but I'll drive an hour just to buy a dozen.)
posted by caution live frogs at 6:21 AM on March 23, 2005

Correct bagel types:
- Plain
- Sesame
- Poppy
- Salt
- Onion
- Everything
- Cinnamon Raisan

Incorrect bagel types:
- Sun-dried tomato
- Blueberry
- Jalapeno
- Pesto
- Anything not listed under "Correct bagel types"


And the addition of garlic by another person.

SKWM... I am SOOOOO with you on this point!!!
posted by abbyladybug at 6:17 AM on March 24, 2005

The bagel conversation continues here and here.
posted by abbyladybug at 3:47 PM on March 24, 2005