We can’t say we’re surprised.
Boichik Bagels in Berkeley has taken the confectionery crown, outranking even the best bagel shops in NYC, and New Yorkers aren’t too pleased about it.
NY Times restaurant critic and Brooklyn native Tejal Rao made the astonishing declaration in an article posted yesterday. She described Boichik Bagels as having “the look of Labrador puppies curled up for afternoon naps: soft and pudgy, golden roly-polys.”
“The bread has a comforting squish – thick but yielding, chewy but not densely so, with a shiny, sweet-and-salty crust and a rich, malty breath that fills up the bag before you even get home.”
Boichik Bagels is spearheaded by Emily Winston, a New Jersey native who strives to create bagels as delicious as those she enjoyed from New York institutions with her father. Upon the closure of her favorite H&H Bagels, she grieved their loss like the death of a loved one and began a quest to recreate the fluffy round delicacies on her own.
After extensive Google searches and years of trial-and-error home baking, Wilson opened Boichik Bagels in November of 2019 right near the UC Berkeley campus. Since then, it’s enjoyed the kind of bagel pride that Noah’s Bagels brought to the area 30 years prior, when Noah Alper opened up his first bagel shop on the exact same street corner at College and Alcatraz Avenues.