Thanks to the trending hashtag #bagel and viral TikTok stories, bakeries selling the iconic holey bread are increasingly fashionable in London. Influencers are ditching flaky pastries, sour dough and white bread for tangy New York-style bagels topped with seeds and filled with schmears (variations of cream cheese mixed with anything from honey and blueberries to olives and horseradish).
To find out what the hype is all about, look to five of the very best bagel delis in London.
It’s Bagels
65 Regents Park Road, NW1 8XD
A viral TikTok video, now with 1.8m views, catapulted It’s Bagels into a cult deli. When the bagel shop opened in Primrose Hill last year, hundreds of customers queued for over an hour. Months later, queues still snake around the block on Saturday mornings. The deli is run by former New Yorker Dan Martensen who spent the pandemic perfecting the recipe for a bagel that reminded him of home, with a ‘crusty, flavourful shell and a pillow inside.’
B Bagel
94 Tottenham Court Rd, W1T 4TN
Known for its proper New York style bagels, B Bagel in Dalston has quite the following on Instagram. Such is the rising popularity of the three-strong bagel chain that they recently revealed plans to expand to eight sites within the next 12 months. Their traditional family recipe stone-bakes the bagels in house to master a crispy outside and chewy inside.
Papo’s Bagels
73-75 Shacklewell Lane, E8 2EB
Good reviews and social media send customers hurtling to the end of a hidden alley in Dalston searching for Papo’s Bagels, another new bakery cashing in on the rising trend of NYC-style bagels in London. Their crisp crusted bagels are baked by a New Yorker husband and wife team. There are seven bagel flavours on the menu. For fillings, anything goes from meaty cold cuts and oak smoked salmon with chive to a gooey tuna melt with pink pickled onions.
Rinkoff Bakery
224 Jubilee Street, E1 3BS
Rinkoff Bakery has been something of a London institution since 1911. Way before the days of Insta, this 100-year-old Jewish bakery was serving fresh chewy bagels filled with salt beef and gherkins in the East End. The fifth generation of the family joined in 2023. Social media has played its part in boosting business. The shop became famous for creating crodoughs, a hybrid between a croissant and donut and their rainbow bagels went viral.
Fortnum & Mason
181 Piccadilly, W1A 1ER
It’s a sign of the times when Fortnum & Mason jumps on the bandwagon. Last year, the world’s most famous corner shop opened its very own New York bagel bar in their legendary food halls. The menu lists different seasoned bagels including sesame, sea salt, cinnamon and raisin, and 11 cream cheese options from coffee to toffolossus.
