Worth the Schlep for this Schmear

While New York is the culinary capital of the country (at least in my opinion), it goes without saying that this city is notorious for two foods that are seldom replicated as well anywhere outside the Tri-state area: bagels and pizza. Rumor has it that this is because of the quality of the water here. I once heard about a pizzeria in LA that has NYC water delivered daily to make better, more authentic NY pizza. But now, we're going to turn our focus to bagels.

There are a handful of bagel/smoked fish places in New york, familiar to both the locals and the tourists. But, it's really exciting to find a new bagel place to add to the list...and that's just what I did. Zucker's Bagels & Smoked Fish just opened this past fall, yet has a feel that suggests it has been around almost as long as such New York icons as Russ & Daughters and Barney Greengrass, which both opened in the early 1900s. Zucker's shares the same owners as the well-known Murray's Bagels in Chelsea, but these two have very different atmospheres.

In addition to a large variety of bagels, the menu runs the gambit from smoked fish to dozens of schmears to deli meats. I went a different route and got an egg & cheese sandwich on a bagel. In most bagel places except kosher ones, you'd normally see bacon or sausage available to go on the sandwich, but since I don't eat pork, I was excited to see both turkey bacon and chicken sausage on the menu too. The bagels were very fresh, and were more on the crunchy side than chewy. I personally prefer more chewy bagels, but Zucker's were still very good.

Zucker's may be pretty far downtown, but it's definitely worth the schlep, especially if you work in the area (very close to both WFC and City Hall), or if you have visitors and are showing them around downtown.

Zucker's Bagels & Smoked Fish
146 Chambers Street
b/t Hudson & Greewich Streets
Menu Pages listing

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