The Best Bagels In LA

This tiny weekend-only pop-up in Highland Park (run by the co-founder of GGET) has a “we’re here until we’re not” attitude and often sells out by 1pm, which might be annoying if its crackly fresh-baked sourdough bagels weren’t so incredible. As good as the loosies are, their messy open-faced sandwiches are even better. We’re fans of the Grampa Sam with a flurry of fried capers that’s their take on a classic lox situation, but the standout is the Deanna Michelle, a play on Din Tai Fung’s cucumbers that's topped with chili oil and miso scallion schmear.

We’ve watched Belle’s grow from a small takeout window into a full-service Jewish deli, and it’s been very rewarding. That’s mostly because the bagel menu at this Highland Park spot kept getting bigger, and we’re unabashed fans. These double-fermented bagels have a distinct complex aroma that sets them apart from the competition. They’re also a big part of why Belle’s bagel sandwiches are our favorite way to start the morning in NELA, especially the Shelskey with pastrami-smoked lox, sweet “fancy” relish, and a splat of punchy deli mustard.

Wake and Late is one of those freaky perfectionist types. After they all but perfected the breakfast burrito, they decided to add sourdough bagels to their menu, and, well, they're nearly perfect, too. This DTLA window (with a Pasadena location) offers small “rip-and-dip” bagels that arrive warm in a bag, with a glossy, snappy crust and insides that are fluffy and moist with big air bubbles. True to their name, the bagels tear apart effortlessly, but more strangely, there’s also a minimum two-bagel order (which at $6 for two, we're fine with). Two dips are also included—we love combining the sweet caramelized onion bagel with the lox cream cheese, which has lemon zest, capers, and fresh dill mixed in.

Calling the stuffed puff balls at Koreatown's Calic Bagel "bagels" feels like a stretch, but if you can get past the taxonomy, there's no denying these puffy, yeasty rolls filled with sweet-ish garlic cream cheese and dunked in garlic butter are delicious (albeit very rich). The loose bagels though—baked fresh every 30 minutes—are just as great. They're extremely fluffy on the inside, with a thin, blistered crust. The dip and sandwich options, like maple-cinnamon-walnut cream cheese or the "Ktown Not Philly" sandwich with bulgogi and gochujang aioli, might come across as gimmicky but work shockingly well.

Gather ’round, boys and girls, because Courage is teaching a master class in LA bagel-making. Some insist the bagels here are Montreal-style, but they're also their own thing entirely: slightly smaller, thinner, and sweeter than the New York-style bagels found at places like Maury’s, Brooklyn Bagels, and Hank’s, and essentially closer to fancy bread that just happened to be made in a ring shape. If you opt for toppings (which you should), the bagels are served open-faced with things like thick, hand-sliced smoked salmon with cream cheese, cucumbers, heirloom tomatoes, dill, pepper, and drizzles of olive oil—which makes for thoroughly well-seasoned bagels that look and taste like works of art.

This Ocean Park shop is the Courage Bagels rival the Westside has been waiting for: a lovely little counter service spot with great coffee and outrageously delicious bagels piled high with the freshest produce available. And while you can absolutely order crusty-on-the-outside, cushiony-on-the-inside loosies, you’d be missing out if you didn’t try some of the open-face bagel offerings. Toppings range from classics (cream cheese, tomatoes, herbs, smoked salmon, pickled onions) to less typical stuff (lemon zest, chili flakes, PB&J, avocado, hummus). The bagel with seasonal fruit—we got mandarin wedges—plus cream cheese and honey gives us goosebumps just thinking about it.

Maury’s was famous long before they even truly opened. Their weekly pop-ups at Eastside coffee shops were the stuff of legend, selling out most mornings as hordes of people lined up to score a bagel. With their 2019 brick-and-mortar debut, Maury’s was able to cut down on the lines, but the quality remains. These bagels are on the small side, but they are dense, chewy, and absolutely fantastic. The thin-skinned crust still has a bit of texture, and Maury’s makes them at such a clip that yours will always be warm inside. If you’re going for a sandwich, any of the smoked fish options are great, especially the fatty, smoky sablefish.

Pop’s Bagels started in 2017 as a catering operation, run out of the owner’s apartment. Now, they're a bit of a mini-chain with four locations across LA. These bagels are super simple, doughy, dense, and very tasty. The bacon and avocado is a favorite of ours—served with your choice of cream cheese (we like the pickled jalapeño, which is full of fatty and spicy flavors but won’t overpower the bagel beneath). You should also get the What Zach Had For Breakfast, a rotating special involving sweet-and-savory combos like a sesame bagel topped with Santa Barbara Smokehouse lox on one side, and cream cheese and strawberry jam on the other.

A relative newcomer to the scene (they opened in 2019), Hank’s Deli in Burbank is all about the bagel sandwiches. Which isn’t to say their bagels aren’t good, it’s just that this place treats them like blank canvases. They cure their thick-cut lox in-house for their Number 3 sandwich, and serve it with heirloom tomatoes, pickled onion, and salted cucumber. The Number 1 is another good choice—a classic BEC updated with sweet maple-glazed bacon, sharp cheddar, and aioli—but our favorite egg sandwich here is the New Number 2, which combines braised greens, Gruyere, and a fried egg, and gets a tremendous kick of heat from pickled spicy peppers.

Of course Gjusta makes good bagels—this new Venice classic handles baked goods like Mookie Betts handles hanging curveballs. They’re blistered and golden on the outside, and dense and tender on the inside, with a strong malty smell that brings to mind freshly brewed beer. In other words, by all those standards we talked about at the beginning of this guide, they’re basically perfect. The bagel topped with salmon roe and garlic labneh on the menu is great, but honestly, we also love them old-school and simple, with nothing but a bit of their locally made cream cheese.

If you’ve taken a Saturday morning drive down San Vicente in Brentwood, or Sunset in Silver Lake, or been anywhere in the vicinity of Melrose Place, you’ve seen the crowds outside Yeastie Boys’ bagel trucks. Their bagels are—you guessed it—distinctively yeasty, but the main reason to come here are the over-the-top sandwiches. There’s the Reubenstein, an inside-out bagel sandwich with pastrami, Swiss, sauerkraut, and Russian dressing, or the Game Over, with heaping portions of scrambled eggs, bacon, tomato, and jalapeño cream cheese. They go heavy on that cream cheese, too—and we’re not complaining.

For the bagel snob, a gluten-free option might evoke the same feelings as putting ketchup on a hot dog: it just ain’t right. But Modern Bread & Bagel, a gluten-free NYC bakery with a location in Woodland Hills, proves that gluten-free bagels can not only be acceptable but excellent. The ones here have a subtle yeasty tang, a satisfyingly dense bite, and toast beautifully without tasting like a charred sponge. The go-to here is Modern’s pastrami-cured lox sandwich on their onion-heavy everything bagel, plus a slice of their cinnamon roll loaf that we won’t leave without.

Brooklyn Bagel Bakery first opened in West Adams in 1953, and moved to Historic Filipinotown in 1965—making it the oldest spot on this guide by several decades. They operated as a wholesale operation for most of that time, but, after some, uh, structural issues and a subsequent rebuild, this bakery reopened in 2018 with a retail shop to sell their beautiful, blistery bagels. We like them best with a heavy-handed spread of garlic cream cheese, and a few capers sprinkled on top, so that the focus is on these dense, doughy, thin-skinned beauties.