Food

Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Favorite Bagel Shop

By Renee Ghert-Zand January 28, 2014

Photo: Flickr/CLender

If you were following New York City news last week, then you’ll know that millions of tri-state area residents (including an irate Jon Stewart) were flabbergasted to see Bill de Blasio eating a slice of pizza with a fork and knife. Deeply disappointed New Yorkers (as well as citizens of neighboring New Jersey and Connecticut) were left wondering whether they will ever be able to rely on New York’s new mayor’s taste when it comes to the Big Apple’s signature foods.

The question is not a hypothetical one, because now, just days after Forkgate, hizzoner has passed judgment on the most Jewish of New York foods: the bagel. Brooklyn Magazine reports that de Blasio has named Bagel Hole in Park Slope the purveyor of the best bagel in all of New York. Not only are Bagel Hole’s bagels the best, but they are also “the most authentic, traditional authentic,” according to the mayor.

We are sure plenty of New Yorkers (including devoted fans of say, Tal Bagels, Murray’s and the now shuttered H&H) would beg to differ with de Blasio, but he does seem to actually know what he is talking about. Bagel Hole often appears on lists of New York’s best bagel shops.

The mayor may be bagel-savvy, but he is taking a risk speaking out on culinary matters so soon after the pizza scandal. (Sorry Bill, but no one bought your explanation that you were just following pizza-eating etiquette from your ancestral homeland.) Some people may be so outraged by his use of silverware that they might think it a waste of time to chew on his bagel pronouncement.

Then again, they could cut the new mayor some slack. He’s apparently big on transparency, and even if he was far from transparent about his recent under-the-radar meeting with AIPAC, at least he’s being totally upfront about his eating habits.

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