Forkelo ranking · Updated October 2026
10 bagels across New York City, ranked on what people say about the dish itself — never the restaurant's overall rating.
Best Bagel & Coffee · Midtown (Garment District), Manhattan
33 dish-specific mentions · 73% positive · 3 source types · menu verified October 2026
Big, puffy, chewy bagels with heaping schmears; one critic ranks it first in the city and many diners call it their favorite. Some found it dry, okay or overhyped.
Tompkins Square Bagels · East Village, Manhattan
32 dish-specific mentions · 72% positive · 3 source types · menu verified October 2026
Huge, airy, chewy bagels with a big lineup of house cream cheeses that many diners rank among the best. Detractors cite stale or hard bagels, thin spreads at times, and high prices.
BO's Bagels · Harlem, Manhattan
29 dish-specific mentions · 66% positive · 3 source types · menu verified October 2026
Glossy, dense, chewy bagels with a crisp crust and well-seasoned everything that critics and locals rate highly. A few diners call them bready, underbaked, small or thinly spread.
Utopia Bagels · Whitestone, Queens
36 dish-specific mentions · 69% positive · 3 source types · menu verified October 2026
Balanced bagels, crisp outside and chewy inside, with a generous cream cheese ratio, ranked first by one guide. Some longtime fans say they have shrunk and now run hard or burnt.
2788 Bagels · Upper West Side, Manhattan
26 dish-specific mentions · 69% positive · 3 source types · menu verified October 2026
A reboot of a beloved Upper West Side shop still turning out dense, chewy, lightly sweet bagels that critics and regulars love. Some find them average, over-toasted or bready.
Apollo Bagels · East Village, Manhattan
47 dish-specific mentions · 60% positive · 3 source types · menu verified October 2026
Tangy, blistered sourdough bagels with a crackly crust that many call the best in the city. Purists object, and several diners found them thin, burnt or over-toasted, with skimpy schmear.
Murray's Bagels · Greenwich Village, Manhattan
31 dish-specific mentions · 61% positive · 3 source types · menu verified October 2026
A dependable classic: big, dense, well-browned bagels with a good chew and generous spreads. Critics now call it solid rather than top tier, and some diners report cold, hard or dry bagels.
Ess-a-Bagel · Stuyvesant Town / Gramercy, Manhattan
25 dish-specific mentions · 60% positive · 3 source types · menu verified October 2026
Huge, puffy, malty bagels with big schmears, ranked among the city's best by critics and many diners. Critics of the shop cite hard or stale bagels, thin spreads, and a lost old-school crust.
Russ & Daughters · Lower East Side, Manhattan
39 dish-specific mentions · 51% positive · 3 source types · menu verified October 2026
Glossy, chewy, traditional bagels that shine with the shop's schmears and fish. Many diners say the bagel is ordinary, hard when toasted, or stingy with cream cheese next to the lox.
Shelsky's Brooklyn Bagels · Park Slope, Brooklyn
20 dish-specific mentions · 35% positive · 3 source types · menu verified October 2026
Small, dense, carefully made bagels with standout seasoning that two critics rank near the top. Many diners call them tiny, pricey, stale late in the day, or over-baked.
Every score is built from evidence about the specific dish: how often locals recommend it, how strongly, how recently, and whether independent sources agree. A restaurant's overall star rating is never converted into a dish score.
Quality and confidence are reported separately. A dish two people loved can score high, but it is marked limited data until more evidence backs it up. The whole calculation — every constant, and three dishes worked through line by line — is written out on the methodology page.
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