Russ & Daughters

"The Russ & Daughters bagel experience should not exist without smoked fish. Please, we repeat, please, order a bagel with some sort of fish topping or at least a side of their excellent hot-smoke cold-smoke salmon combination dip to dunk your bagel into. The near-translucent nova at this 1914 Lower East Side appetizing institution is sliced so fine that a puppet master could use it as a backdrop for casting shadows. Russ & Daughters’ white-coated staff expertly layer the soft, pliable fish drapings onto sturdy, comparatively small bagels, which act as the ideal mattress for all of the toppings. Russ & Daughters also has three cafés with seating: in Hudson Yards, on the LES, and the Brooklyn Navy Yard." - willa moore, neha talreja, hannah albertine, will hartman