We Found Out What Actually Makes New York Bagels So Superior

Welcome to Off the Eaten Path, a series where our Test Kitchen creator Noah Tanen dives deep into regional recipes. Next up? New York bagels.

I’m just going to say it: New York City has the best bagels in America, and probably in the world. The absolute greatest, fresh out of the wood-fired oven at St. Viateur in Montreal come close, but what New York has over its Canadian counterpart is a far wider availability of good bagels almost anywhere. I would go as far as to say that the vast majority in New York are, if not great, pretty good.

Anyone who has lived anywhere else will tell you that this is not typical. The folk knowledge used to explain the concentration of high quality bagels has become gospel: it’s all about the water, that there’s something about the pH or the mineral content in NYC tap water that causes the city’s dough to be intangibly superior.

I’ve always been skeptical of this notion, but a little research shows it’s simply not true. America’s Test Kitchen conducted a taste test, pitting bagels made with both Boston and New York City municipal water against each other. The results amongst tasters showed the two batches to be virtually indistinguishable.

So what actually makes them better in New York? In my opinion, it’s the people. Bagels arrived in New York City by way of Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants from Poland in the late 1800s, and ever since, New Yorkers have been perfecting the craft of bagel rolling and boiling, holding on fiercely to tried and true techniques and recipes even in the modern era.

After all, this kind of passionate local culture is what makes regional food special. When you have a history spanning centuries and generations of people making the same food, often in competition with one another, it’s that pride and local association which produces greatness. It’s why Philadelphia makes the best cheesesteaks, Texas has the best barbecue, and why New York City makes the greatest bagels.

Even if you’re not in or from New York City, you can make homemade bagels yourself. I’ll be trying my hand as well. Stay tuned to our Instagram for an upcoming episode of Noah Tackles: Bagels coming next week.

Have you ever made bagels from scratch? Let us know in the comments!