Food and Wine ranks the top 50 bagel spots in the US
New York City doesn’t own the copyright to delicious bagels. That’s the main takeaway from Food and Wine’s round up of the top 50 bagel shops across the country.
Of course the top spot still goes to a NYC favorite, the Upper West Side’s Absolute Bagels. It’s a well-deserved win; the cash only joint still sees long lines every morning for their paradoxically crispy and doughy fare. It’s also probably one of the few places where you can wash down your bagel with a Thai iced tea.
A testament to their quality, Absolute Bagels ranked 15 spots above fellow Manhattan contender, Ess-a-Bagel, where Absolute’s owner Sam Thongkrieng is known to have learned the craft.
(Full disclosure: This author spent three years living a few blocks away from Absolute Bagels and very much agrees with Food and Wine’s assessment.)
Nonetheless, 29 of the list’s 50 shops were beyond the Hudson – in locales as far afield as Fargo, North Dakota (BernBaum’s), Berea, Kentucky (Native Bagel Co.), Nashville, Tennessee (Proper Bagel) and Dallas, Texas (Lenore’s Handmade Bagel Co.)
Also included is Washington, D.C bagel joint, Call Your Mother, where the presidential motorcade reportedly stopped for a quick bite after president Biden’s first Sunday Mass in office.
Though once a mainstay of America’s Jewish immigrant communities at the turn of the last century, there’s no irony in bagels after church. The traditional Ashkenazi fare has long since made its way out of the Jewish community, or at least the religious one, with only a handful of the 50 in Food & Wine’s list certified kosher, such as Manhattan’s Ess-a-Bagel, Pittsburgh’s Pidgeon Bagels and Teaneck, New Jersey’s aptly named Teaneck Hot Bagels.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
2X match on all Passover gifts!
Most Popular
- 1
News A Jewish Republican and Muslim Democrat are suddenly in a tight race for a special seat in Congress
- 2
Film & TV What Gal Gadot has said about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- 3
Fast Forward The NCAA men’s Final Four has 3 Jewish coaches
- 4
Culture How two Jewish names — Kohen and Mira — are dividing red and blue states
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward Naftali Bennett is back: Former Israeli prime minister will make another run at Netanyahu
-
Fast Forward Citing post-Holocaust doctrine, Germany seeks to deport 4 pro-Palestinian protesters, including one American
-
Fast Forward Trump administration freezes research funding to Princeton amid antisemitism investigations
-
Fast Forward ‘Another Jewish warrior’: Fine wins special election for U.S. House seat
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.