On a recent morning, 20 bagels, six tubs of cream cheese and eight pairs of furrowed brows came together in a conference room for a blind taste test.
Members of the Chronicle’s Food & Wine team scrutinized flavor and texture, crust and crumb to determine the region’s best bagels — a hotly debated topic now that the Bay Area is awash with options. Hand-rolled and boiled; sourdough bagels; unconventional seeding choices: There’s never been a better time to eat bagels in the Bay Area.
We picked up 20 everything bagels at shops throughout the region, from longtime stalwarts to trendy newcomers. (One organizer even tried to trick us by throwing in a grocery store bagel.) We included only brick-and-mortar shops with regular hours; no popups or farmers market operations. Considered side-by-side, the 20 bagels illustrated the broad range of the form, from oversized to what one taster called “runty;” from pale beige to deep amber; and generously or sparsely covered in seeds. For consistency, the panel of judges tasted them untoasted with Philadelphia cream cheese. (After the tasting, we also tried specialty schmears from a variety of bagel shops — scroll below the rankings for our favorites.)
Our team logged ratings for flavor and texture, then gave each bagel an overall score from 0 to 10. In the end, seeds were strewn everywhere. And the results? Surprising…