The bagel, the food that arguably embodies New York City the most, didn’t really come into Andrew Martinez’s life until quite late, but this little ring of bread that comes out of his oven is now regularly hailed as the one of the best in the megalopolis. “Sometimes when I walk in here, I’m like, ‘I can’t believe this is my life,'” he says. It’s New York. It is extremely difficult to succeed here”.
Born in the New York neighborhood of Queens, this restaurant professional got into this branch by chance after being hospitalized for two months in 2014, fed by a tube. He had decided that the first thing he would do, once his health was restored, would be to enjoy a bagel, that small ring-shaped bun inseparable from New York, where no less than 500 independent specialty shops offer it, according to Sam Silverman, executive director of BagelUp.
“People eat with their memories”
Back home, in Harlem, Andrew Martinez unfortunately realizes that no shop worthy of the name is located nearby and taking the subway to satisfy this desire is very displeasing to him. Neither one nor two, he embarked on in-depth research on the bagel, which arrived in New York via the Jewish neighborhoods of southeast Manhattan and whose most emblematic version, the “lox” bagel, contains smoked salmon and spreadable cheese. He reads everything that comes to hand, traces the history of the bagel, talks with experts. After about six months of experimentation, he manages to design a bagel similar to his childhood bagel. “People eat with their memories,” he says. I dreamed of the bagels I ate as a kid in Queens and this is the taste I was looking for. »
“People eat with their memories,” says Andrew Martinez, here in the middle of making his bagels. I dreamed of the bagels I ate as a kid in Queens and this is the taste I was looking for. (Photo Yuki Iwamura/AFP)
What started as a personal quest turned when family members inspired him to think bigger. With his wife Ashley Dikos, they started with a market stall and then, in 2017, they opened a 110 m2 store in West Harlem: Bo’s Bagels. Immediately, a queue forms.
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But the adventure encountered some pitfalls, such as the day before the first market. The couple are awakened in the middle of the night by the sudden opening of the refrigerator door – the family kitchen serves as a workshop – where there were hundreds of raw bagels. “It had become a giant ball of dough” under the effect of the yeast, recalls Ashley Dikos. False start, therefore, for this first market and hours of cutting the dough to evacuate it in pieces in the garbage chute without arousing the suspicions of the building staff.
Ashley Dikos, wife of Andrew Martinez, has been running Bo’s Bagels with him since 2017. (Photo Yuki Iwamura/AFP)
Creating the perfect bagel starts about 48 hours before it’s baked, when flour, yeast, and water are mixed together, then left to sit for a few hours. To slow down fermentation, the dough is refrigerated overnight and then boiled for about ten minutes. Behind the stoves of Bo’s Bagels, the baker is busy with all these tasks, sprinkling the various seeds and other assortments, monitoring the rotation of the four ovens, turning the bagels and, finally, removing them when they are ready. .
A second store in New York
But some manufacturers don’t take the time to go through this laborious process, often resulting in mushy, stuffy, and/or flavorless bagels. “There are a lot of mediocre bagels out there,” acknowledges Sam Silverman, executive director of BagelUp, who points out that despite everything, the bagel is having its heyday with historic players like Ess-a and Utopia Bagels.
Behind the stove at Bo’s Bagels, Andrew Martinez begins creating his bagels 48 hours before baking them. (Photo Yuki Iwamura/AFP)
Bo’s, a newcomer to this arena, credits its success to its manufacturing process, quality ingredients, and choosing to make a crispier, smaller bagel. It produces around 3,000 bagels daily but should double its production after opening a second store this fall in Washington Heights, in the far north of the island of Manhattan. The couple’s ambition is to open some outside of New York.
Once the basic bagel had been worked out, it was time to design a menu that satisfied both purists and adventurous ones who preferred to experiment, with blueberry or three-cheese options. “These days, you have to provide a lot of variety for all kinds of people,” noted Ashley Dikos, in charge of this role.
2023-08-20 14:32:33
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