Customers line up for extra-crispy rings from Courage Bagels, rain or shine.
(Shelby Moore / For The Times)
21 of the best bagel shops in Los Angeles
A bagel renaissance is boiling over in Los Angeles.
For years now, local bagel makers have been perfecting recipes and styles, intent on shifting our city’s reputation for lackluster rings. While at first these bakers sought to replicate the nostalgia of New York- and Montreal-style bagels, regional styles have since emerged. Often, the toppings highlight seasonal produce, and the bagels themselves are airier, with crispy and chewy crusts. Some of the best bagel shops in L.A. are standing out by skipping the sugar and yeast and taking extra time to let their dough rise naturally.
There’s Courage Bagels, opened by Arielle Skye and her husband, Chris Moss, in 2020, in a former panadería in Virgil Village. Four years later, you’ll still find a parade of hungry Angelenos patiently lined up at the shop from open to close, rain or shine. It’s the only bagel shop to earn a spot on critic Bill Addison’s annual 101 Best Restaurants guide two years running.
In Santa Monica, two popular bagel shops — Jyan Isaac Bread and Layla Bagels — sit side by side on Ocean Park Drive. Both are open daily with almost identical hours yet don’t seem in competition — it helps that Jyan offers a wide selection of breads in addition to sourdough bagels.
Business partners Zach Werner and Joe Barker opened Smögen Appetizers in Studio City late last year. Werner, who grew up going to Jewish delis in Miami and New York, sought to bring a comparable bagel experience to San Fernando Valley.
Popping up at Barker’s wine bar Vintage Wine + Eats every weekend for breakfast and brunch, Smögen pays homage to Jewish appetizing stores that specialize in bagel toppings like smoked fish and plays on California seafood staples, such as sushi-grade hamachi and ahi poke that top furikake-dusted bagels.
“Because we want the best, I hand slice my lox,” Werner says. “The machine just won’t slice it as thin as I want it. That’s something I loved from New York was watching the guys slice my lox.”
You can grab bulk bagels and pints of schmear for an affordable price from most of the shops featured on this list, but be prepared for bagel sandwiches with fillings such as pastrami-seasoned lox, whitefish salad with dry-aged hamachi collar or honey-drizzled blood orange from Santa Monica Farmers Market to be priced accordingly.
From Irvine to Highland Park to old town El Segundo, here are 21 bagel shops for a taste of L.A.’s overflowing scene.
Everything everywhere bagel notes
Showing Places
(Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times)
Bagel + Slice
Eagle Rock Bagels Pizza
It’s only logical that a half bagel shop, half pizzeria would make one of L.A.’s top spins on a pizza bagel, but Bagel + Slice nails each independently too. This dual-concept spot launched in 2022 and uses regenerative flours as well as a rainbow of produce. The everything bagel is the most popular, but the most inspired is the option flecked with dried rosemary and za’atar; they’re enjoyed a la carte, with cream cheese or as part of a bagel sandwich in options such as the Huevos a la Mexicana, with egg, grilled jalapeños, tomatoes and onions, or the quintessential pick: the open-faced Goldilox, which piles scallion cream cheese with lox, dill, capers, red onion and a drizzle of vibrant lemon-infused olive oil. There are New York-style slices and whole pizzas too, but the bialy-like pizzettes are one of Bagel + Slice’s most distinctive offerings.
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Belle's Bagels
Highland Park Bagels
The hand-rolled-bagel operation from Nick Schreiber and J.D. Rocchio has lived many lives over the last decade-plus: A home operation grew to a pop-up out of La Perla, then moved down York Boulevard to a takeout window in the former music venue the Hi Hat. Soon, it’ll evolve into its very own restaurant and deli along York, set to open late this spring. From a small table outside that restaurant’s front door is where you can currently find bagels to go, alongside schmears made with California dairy, onion-laden latkes and specials like whole loaves of olive oil challah or vegan coffee cake. But the stars remain the bagels, chewy with just the right amount of bite from the golden outer shell, in classic flavors as well as the more unusual (and fan-favorite) cacio e pepe variety. The tomato jam, perfectly toeing the line between sweet and spicy, is a must-add on any breakfast sandwich.
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Boil & Bake
Costa Mesa Bagels $
This place makes everything, from the butter to the cured lox, from scratch. The bagels, which begin with a sourdough starter named Luna, are boiled and then baked in a wood stone oven. The crust is crispy, wrapped in tiny bubbles. Inside, the dough is chewy but not dense. It’s an excellent bagel I can enjoy toasted with butter. But Boil & Bake specializes in spreads and toppings that will transform your bagel into a sandwich. For a more classic open-faced bagel, lox and cream cheese profile, the Fully Loaded is exactly as advertised. But I’m partial to the Don’t Go Bacon My Heart, with a layer of scallion chive cream cheese, Neuske bacon and a thick slab of pickled green tomato.
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Bread Lounge
Downtown L.A. Bakery $
Something about the Jerusalem bagel is awe-inspiring: Maybe it’s the impressive size, or its plump oval shape, or the amount of seeds its exterior accommodates. And while the bagel is of Eastern European descent, the Jerusalem bagel is related to Middle Eastern breads such as Turkish simit and Lebanese ka’ak. An important distinction is that it isn’t boiled before it’s baked, so it’s soft and fluffy inside rather than dense and chewy. In Los Angeles, Jerusalem bagels are far less common than the New York-by-way-of-Warsaw round bread. Ran Zimon, who grew up outside Tel Aviv, stocks his Arts District bakery with plenty of Jerusalem bagels, with sesame seeds or multiseeded, including zingy caraway. Order a side of labneh and za’atar.
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Calic Bagel
Westside Bagels $
Husband-and-wife duo Alex and Sun Sohn went viral during the pandemic when they launched a garlic bread pop-up via Instagram, and now, at their Koreatown cafe, you can indulge in fresh, hand-rolled bagels that come stuffed with indulgent fillings such as the Ktown Not Philly bagel sandwich with beef bulgogi, mozzarella, arugula and spicy gochujang aioli. Schmears also depart from your usual flavors, including bacon scallion, basil sun-dried tomato, fig pecan and cacio e pepe butter flavors. Coffee drinks, loaded tots and creamy house soup round out the menu, with bags of bagel chips coated in everything seasoning available to go.
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Courage Bagels
East Hollywood Bagels
L.A. Times’ 101 Best Restaurants
| 2023 No current discussion of L.A.’s bagel scene can ignore Courage Bagels. The game-changing business began nearly six years ago, when Arielle Skye started selling her compact, smoky-crisp, Montreal-inspired bagels from the back of a bicycle. In October 2020, she and her now-husband, Chris Moss, moved into the Virgil Village space previously occupied by Super Pan bakery. The lines have been legendary since; these are truly some of the best bagels in the U.S. My standard order is the Winter in Sardinia — a sandwich layered with sardines, herbs, lemon and a fistful of capers — and also half of a purposely burnt bagel pounded with everything seasoning and draped with smoked salmon. However, no matter what you order or when you show up, there will be a line, and it will be worth the wait.
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(Jenn Harris / Los Angeles Times)
Gjusta
Venice Bagels $$
The bagels at Gjusta are textbook good: crunchy shells with soft, chewy middles. The place is more conservative than most when it comes to the amount of seasoning on the everything bagel, with more of a smattering of dried onion and sesame seeds that allows you to really taste the onion. As good as the bagel is on its own, it’s even better with a schmear of the labneh spread, a couple of slices of pastrami lox and pickled onions.
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Hank's Bagels
Burbank Bagels Deli
With so many good bagel places in the city, it can be difficult to pick a favorite, as with children or Prince albums. Hank’s Bagels, with locations in Burbank, Sherman Oaks and Calabasas, makes a bagel I’d classify as a slightly harder bake — firm with a crusty exterior. If that’s what you look for in your bagel style, you’ll love this place. And while a sturdier bagel might make for slightly more spillage when biting into a bagel sandwich (try the bacon, egg and cheese with tomato and aioli), you’ll forget about that when you try some of the fun-flavored varieties like an everything with cheddar and pickled jalapeños baked onto it or a very good rosemary and sea salt bagel.
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Hot Water Bagels
Bagels $$
Jesse Furman knows a thing or two about a good bagel — especially when it’s done with a modern, sourdough edge. The New York native grew up frequenting the city’s bagel shops and Jewish delis, and when it came time for the former Grá chef to take his holey hobby professional, he lifted inspiration from his New York haunts as well as L.A.’s baking scene, with Clark Street, Bub and Grandma’s and Tartine influencing his sourdough-bagel process. The result is a flavorful, light-as-air center with a satisfying crust in straightforward flavors such as sesame, everything and plain, served with throwback accouterments: hand-sliced cured trout, house-smoked whitefish salad, crispy latkes, seasonal salads and chicken liver pâté. For now, find Hot Water Bagels popping up around the city, both on Furman’s own and with collaboration menus via the likes of Maison Matho, Lasita and Pizzeria Sei. Later this year look for a bricks-and-mortar location for bagels and other old-school deli favorites.
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Jyan Isaac Bread
Santa Monica Bakery $$
Baker Jyan Isaac Horwitz launched his sourdough business during the pandemic, and when he outgrew his home kitchen (because the Instagram orders kept coming), he opened his own bakery on Ocean Park Boulevard in 2021. The line to the takeout window extends down the block for his whole grain porridge loaf, brioche, babka, rugbrod and sourdough bagels. The bagel selection includes everything, sesame, onion, pumpernickel, plain and an especially beautiful blue poppyseed. The bagel sandwich of choice? For me, that’s wild Alaskan salmon roe with a thick layer of cream cheese, fresh dill and paper-thin slices of red onion on a sourdough everything bagel. It costs $22; the half-sandwich version is $12.
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Layla Bagels
Santa Monica Bagels Coffee
On a cozy stretch of Ocean Park Boulevard next to Jyan Issac Bread, Layla Bagels comes from brothers Harry and David Wexner and partner and general manager Kai Johnson, with Sammi Tarantino serving as head chef and Sergio España as head baker. Sourdough bagels are hand-rolled, boiled and baked fresh each morning, available plain, with jalapeño cheddar or sprinkled with poppy seeds, sesame seeds or everything seasoning. The nearby Santa Monica farmers market lends seasonal fruit like cara cara and blood oranges to items like the Pre-Jam bagel slathered with cream cheese and drizzled with honey. There’s also a smoked salmon bagel sandwich and one with scrambled eggs, aged cheddar and chermoula chile oil, plus a handful of vegan options. The pastry menu has expanded with chocolate-miso banana bread, a babka muffin and an assortment of cookies.
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Kitchen Mouse
Bakery Vegan $
Some of the best bagels don’t need cream cheese at all, but if you’re looking for an array of plant-based options, Erica Daking’s growing Kitchen Mouse empire has you covered. The chef-owner’s brand operates four vegan outposts in East L.A., most of which offer her chewy, fresh-daily bagels in options such as za’atar, rosemary fennel, everything and plain. They can come dressed simply with cashew- or coconut-based schmear, or done up as sandwiches like a banh mi variant rich with lentil-and-walnut pâté but tangy with cilantro and pickled vegetables; the deli-inspired Lox Down made with capers, red onion, smoked-carrot “lox” and dill; and even a plant-based breakfast sandwich with vegan sausage, egg and cheese. The most plentiful outposts to find them at are the Kitchen Mouse Bakery and at Daking’s latest, a charming walk-up window in a former doughnut shop, where the bagels and other vegan pastries beckon from the glass case.
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Maury's Bagels
Silver Lake Bagels $
On sunny weekend mornings, the crowd — flocking with kids and dogs in tow from the surrounding Silver Lake neighborhood — spills onto the sidewalk. Just as popular as Jason Maury Kaplan’s everything bagels are the ones dusted with za’atar. His are chewy, dense East Coast-style bagels to eat on their own or as the foundation for schmears, smoked fish and fish salads, served sandwich-style or open-faced. Kippered salmon — flaky, baked chunks of it — is one of the corner bagel shop’s best sellers. And though the lemon-curd-topped bagels are no longer available, there is still the option of blueberry cream cheese, if you’re looking for something fruity.
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Pop's Bagels
Culver City Bagels
After six years of tooling around with recipes and scouring the city for a bagel that would match the New York-style rings his grandfather introduced him to as a child, Zach Liporace officially entered the universe of bagel-making. Pop’s Bagels has expanded from an apartment operation in Los Feliz to locations in Culver City, Brentwood, Fairfax and Beverly Hills. Pick up tightly wound bagels generously dusted with sesame seeds, poppy seeds or everything seasoning, in addition to plain, onion, jalapeño cheddar and blueberry varieties. Dress them with buttermilk cream cheese that’s made fresh daily; whitefish, tuna, chicken tarragon or egg salad; smoked Nova lox with capers, cucumbers, tomatoes and red onion; or lunch-y options such as turkey, a BLT or pastrami, egg and cheese.
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(Sarah Mosqueda)
Rye Goods
Orange Bakery $$
The pastry case at Rye Goods in Tustin can be overwhelming in the most delightful way. Rows of caramelized onion and brie croissants, thumbprint cookies dotted with seasonal jam and morning buns that make Kouign-amanns jealous are just a few of the items baked fresh daily. But it is the bagels that keep me coming back almost weekly. The bagels, like nearly everything at Rye Goods, start with a rye sourdough culture that owner Sara Lezama has loving named Winona Ryeder. The Tustin location is tucked behind a corporate office building and serves as the commercial production kitchen for Rye Goods’ other locations in Lido Island and Laguna Beach. The bagels are earthy and naturally nutty with an exterior that toasts up nicely and an interior that is perfectly chewy. The menu offers sesame, plain, jalapeño cheese and everything bagels, along with three house-made cream cheese flavors to accompany them. Choose from plain cream cheese, chive cream cheese full of threads of the mild green allium and garden, which uses seasonal vegetables so it is always a surprise. A bright purple schmear studded with beets, a combination of shredded carrots and herbs and even a fresno chile spread with a dash of cumin for Southwestern flair are just some of the garden varieties that have graced bagels in the past. Any combination of bagel and cream cheese makes an excellent quick breakfast on a weekday, but for weekend brunch indulge in the Egg Bagel Sammy. A bagel of your choice gets a healthy smear of chive cream cheese before getting stacked with crispy smashed potato, an over medium egg, house made chili crunch, a bundle of fresh chives and a squeeze of lemon to brighten the whole thing up. The Egg Bagel Sammy cannot be eaten with one hand while you drive, so grab a table at the communal seating area shared with the office building to dig in.
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Saint-Raf Bagels
Cypress Park Bagels Coffee
Of the L.A. bagels I’ve tried recently, I was most impressed with the ones at Saint-Raf Bagels, a business inside the 1802 Roasters coffee shop in Cypress Park — the bagel-and-coffee matryoshka doll that’s exactly what we all need in life. The bagels are tender and chewy, satisfying to pull apart and with that slight alkaline shine characteristic of so many good ones. You can’t go wrong with the classic smoked salmon and cream cheese combo, or a whitefish salad that goes particularly nicely with a poppyseed bagel that’s so densely covered in seeds, you can barely see the bread beneath. My favorite might be the salt and pepper bagel, however, which has a sharpness reminiscent of a plate of cacio e pepe at a good Roman restaurant.
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(Jakob Layman)
Smögen Appetizers
Studio City Bagels $$
Smögen Appetizers is named after the Swedish town where co-founder Zach Werner’s grandmother is from and where their ancestors smoked fish for hundreds of years before bringing their techniques to America. The luxe bagel pop-up in partner Joe Barker’s Vintage Wine & Eats in Studio City stands apart not just for naturally leavened sourdough bagels that undergo a 25-hour process but also for creative toppings that incorporate smoked and raw fish.
Stop by with a friend for weekend breakfast or brunch and tackle the menu in halves; it’s the best way to sample flavors such as a furikake bagel that’s topped with ahi poke, scallion cream cheese, scallions and furikake, or a sesame bagel with sushi-grade hamachi, wasabi cream cheese, shiso leaf and lemon zest. Don’t skip the whitefish salad, which uses dry-aged kanpachi collar that’s smoked by Liwei Liao of the Joint Seafood nearby, either as a salad served with bagel chips or on top of a poppy seed bagel with wasabi-infused flying fish tobiko roe. A bagel topped with lobster salad with an optional caviar supplement is the only item that must be ordered whole. If you’re with a group and can’t decide, order the Smögen tower with several seafood options, all the accouterments and four toasted bagels of your choice. Each menu item also advises on the best wine pairing, pulled directly from the wine bar’s shelves. Outside of seafood, Smögen recently launched a BEC sandwich with New School American cheese, Nueske bacon and Zab’s hot sauce. Werner plans to launch more collaborative bagels in the future and to do parties and catering as well.
Stop by with a friend for weekend breakfast or brunch and tackle the menu in halves; it’s the best way to sample flavors such as a furikake bagel that’s topped with ahi poke, scallion cream cheese, scallions and furikake, or a sesame bagel with sushi-grade hamachi, wasabi cream cheese, shiso leaf and lemon zest. Don’t skip the whitefish salad, which uses dry-aged kanpachi collar that’s smoked by Liwei Liao of the Joint Seafood nearby, either as a salad served with bagel chips or on top of a poppy seed bagel with wasabi-infused flying fish tobiko roe. A bagel topped with lobster salad with an optional caviar supplement is the only item that must be ordered whole. If you’re with a group and can’t decide, order the Smögen tower with several seafood options, all the accouterments and four toasted bagels of your choice. Each menu item also advises on the best wine pairing, pulled directly from the wine bar’s shelves. Outside of seafood, Smögen recently launched a BEC sandwich with New School American cheese, Nueske bacon and Zab’s hot sauce. Werner plans to launch more collaborative bagels in the future and to do parties and catering as well.
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(Danielle Dorsey / Los Angeles Times)
Tomorrow Bagel
Hollywood Bagels
These hand-shaped bagels are worth setting a weekend alarm clock for. Helmed by Alex Crow and baker Saranee Muengfoo, Tomorrow Bagel popped up at coffee shops like Obet & Del’s and Alibi before securing weekly residencies at Old Town Newhall Farmers Market every Saturday and Hollywood Farmers Market every Sunday. The bagels are boiled and baked, but what makes them stand out is a barley malt syrup that lends a golden hue and a toasted and nutty flavor. Available plain or with za’atar and sea salt, poppy seeds, sesame seeds, everything seasoning or onion, the bagels are so thoroughly coated that hardly any of the bread is visible until you take that initial bite. Stock up on bagels to take home or order a bagel sandwich with such toppings as lox, tomato, red onions, dill, capers and extra virgin olive oil, or scrambled eggs, cheese, bacon and Thai chili honey, with rotating seasonal options.
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Wexler's Deli
Downtown L.A. Bagels $
Wexler’s is the “new-wave old school” deli founded by Micah Wexler and Michael Kassar with locations in Santa Monica and downtown’s Grand Central Market. Wexler, who is a veteran of restaurants such as Craft and Joêl Robuchon, opened the iconic Grand Central Market spot 10 years ago, slinging bagel sandwiches with house-cured lox, smoked sturgeon, white fish salad and pastrami. Wexler’s has the distinction of being one of the only delis in L.A. to cure, smoke and hand-slice all its fish and meat in house. You can’t go wrong with the classic lox, velvety slices draped over a thin layer of cream cheese, topped with a few slices of red onion and sprigs of dill. A few key touches: The capers are sprinkled between the cream cheese and lox (so they don’t roll off), and your sandwich is served with a side of either cole slaw or potato salad, along with pickles and wedges of lemon.
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Uncle Stevey's Bagels
El Segundo Bagels $
Husband-and-wife duo Tom and Tiffany Levy were raised in the San Fernando Valley but had parents and grandparents from New York so they made frequent trips to the East Coast growing up. That’s how they came to love East Coast-style bagels (including the ones made in Maine), and you’ll find similar renditions at Uncle Stevey’s Bagels, a small shop that the pair opened in old town El Segundo late last year. Here, bagels are steamed and baked in a specialty oven, resulting in a crispy crust with a chewy interior. Bagel flavors include plain, sesame and everything, as well as less-common options such as cheddar hot honey, rosemary olive oil and garlic and onion. A selection of bagel sandwiches is also available, including a BLT with avocado and the titular Uncle Stevey with smoked salmon, cream cheese, pickled red onions and dill. Pair your bagel with a coffee, soda or tea and find a seat in the cozy shop or on the street-facing patio.
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Yeastie Boys
Beverly Grove Bagels
Some of L.A.’s favorite bagels can be found at Yeastie Boys’ roving food trucks, where founder Evan Fox shares his take on the New York-style bagel. Yeastie’s hand-rolled bagels are designed to be plump, doughy and extremely squishable to stand up to the onslaught of schmear and other items they manage to cram between the halves. These aren’t just bagels, they’re vehicles for folds of lox, slabs of hash browns, pit-smoked pastrami, jalapeño cheddar schmear, , yolk-oozing fried eggs, vegan red pepper spread and other savory options. The $6 order of mini bagels allows for multiple schmears on two sized-down bagels, but for those looking to level up, the Reubenstein, one of the trucks’ most popular items by far, reimagines the classic reuben on a heaped everything bagel that’s been flipped upside down for maximum grillage; salty, rich and messy, it’s a satisfying meal in ode to the iconic sandwich by Reuben Kulakofsky — a distant relative of Fox’s.
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Updates:
3:00 a.m. March 8, 2024: This guide was originally published on March 9, 2023. It has been updated with new information, including the removal of Bagel Broker. New points of interest have been added, including Hot Water Bagels, Kitchen Mouse, Wexler’s Deli, Jyan Isaac Bread, Smögen Appetizers, Calic Bagel, Rye Goods and Uncle Stevey’s Bagels.
