When you think of bagels, the South may not be the first place that comes to mind.
But Eat This, Not That recently put together a list of the best bagel spots in the country and one in the Peach State made the cut.
As for how the website decided which places around the U.S. to include, it involved a few things.
“What makes a great bagel shop? We think it’s fresh-baked bagels, the best toppings and fixin’s available, and lots of loyal customers,” Eat This, Not That said. “With that in mind, we scoured reviews, talked to locals, and looked back on our travels around the country to put together a definitive list of our favorite bagel shops in the United States.”
Georgia’s top spot belongs to Emerald City Bagels in East Atlanta Villiage.
Mother-and-daughter duo Deanna and Jackie Halcrow opened Emerald City Bagels’ first brick-and-mortar shop in 2018.
“A former Food Network colleague, transplanted to Atlanta, swears by the New York-style bagels at this shop, and they’ve got the accolades to prove it,” Eat This, Not That wrote. “The Long Island mother/daughter team who own the shop has turned their bagel obsession into a thriving business.”
The shop started off small, but after the owners perfected their recipe, word spread about the business. In 2015, Emerald City Bagels won its first award for Best Bagels in Atlanta.
Spotlighted by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution not long after the storefront opened, Emerald City Bagels doesn’t cut corners when crafting its food.
“It takes 72 hours to make a bagel,” Deanna told the AJC in 2018. “We start with a mixture of flour, water and yeast, called a poolish, that’s fermented for 24 hours. Then we take that and make our dough and form the bagels. Then they go away for another 24 hours in the walk-in. Finally, we kettle-boil them, and bake them upside-down on boards in a rotating oven.”
Customers rave about the authentic New York-style bagels’ tastes.
“In Atlanta, we finally have a decent New York-style bagel,” one review said. “This is the best bagel in the ATL since Royal Bagel closed in Ansley Mall. We tried the pretzel bagel and the sesame bagel, and both were competitive with the best bagel places in NYC.”
If you’re hungry to taste them yourself, note that they currently only accept online-only payment for pick-up orders.
