Ess-a-Bagel (831 3rd Ave).

Ess-a-Bagel (831 3rd Ave)

Florence and Gene Wilpon and her brother Aaron Wenzelberg, an Austrian baking family, started Ess-a-Bagel in 1976, and the bagels still come out quarter-plate size and faintly sweet. The everything is seeded edge to edge with no bald spot. Take it with scallion cream cheese.

Why go

This is the Midtown East counter, on Third Avenue between 50th and 51st.4 Matt Tervooren reviewed this door for The Infatuation in 2018. The line goes out the door at the office rush and it moves. This is the bagel New York sold before Apollo Bagels and Popup Bagels started selling the small tangy one.2 Both bagel guides describe the bake at the First Avenue original, so what you read about the crumb was tasted there.

Order this / avoid

• Order: the everything with scallion cream cheese. The house signature is whitefish salad and nova, and that is the one Tervooren picks.1
• Avoid: deciding at the counter. Tervooren's advice is to work the order out while the line moves.

What locals & experts say

• Matt Tervooren, The Infatuation, June 2018: It's not controversial to say that Ess-A-Bagel serves the best bagels in Midtown. People around here seem to agree, as evidenced by the lines that stretch out the front door.1
• The Infatuation's bagel guide, on the bake and written about the First Avenue original: the bagels are highly consistent, slightly sweet, quarter plate-sized and the everything has not a bald spot in sight, and takes scallion cream cheese like a champ.2

Good to know

• The doors: seven, including 770 Third Avenue at 47th, this one at 50th, 108 W 32nd Street, 115 Broadway, the Upper West Side, Time Out Market in Brooklyn and Newark Airport.4
• Booking: none. It is a counter and a queue.

Verdict

should-visit — Matt Tervooren's review prints 831 3rd Ave at the head of the page, so his Midtown verdict is about this premises. That is the single fact that separates this door from the sibling row, and it is from 2018. Eater is where the founding family comes from, and it is brand evidence, not door evidence. The Infatuation supplies the bake and writes it about the First Avenue original, so that half of the page is brand evidence too.