NYC style bagels in Sydney, Australia - Brooklyn Boy Bagels

If you’ve managed to drive down Carrington Road of late, you’ll have no doubt noticed, or driven up to, the red building with its neon sign hung on a wooden pallet and a loading dock full of bagels, breads, croissants, great coffee and more.

Brooklyn Boy Bagels began as a small bar pop-up in 2013 and relocated its authentic New York bagels to Marrickville 4.5 years ago, but it took a Covid pivot this time last year, and a collaboration with Little Marionette coffee, to convince founder Michael Shafran that it was a good idea to open his doors to the public along this industrial stretch.

The Brooklyn Boy “Drive-Thru” is more of a driveway drive-up (or a cycle up from the Cooks River bike path), but it’s an easy place to pick up a flat-white and what Shafran says are the best bagels in Australia. He should know, being born in Brooklyn and raised in the NYC metro area, where bagels are king.

“All I could find were rolls with a hole” Shafran explains, “so I started making them at home for 12 years. Here we don’t cut corners: we always boil, not steam, which creates the right stretchiness of the dough, we use quality products like single-origin flour and American malt, and we take two days to slow-prove and develop a depth of flavour that you won’t find anywhere else in Sydney.”

The most popular bagel is the ‘everything’ bagel – topped with poppy, sesame, onion, garlic and caraway seeds – which can be paired with housemade, soft-whipped cream cheeses like jalapeno, or smoked salmon “lox”, red onion and dill. It’s a very Williamsburg, warehouse vibe, with a wall-sized graffiti of NY hip-hop legend Grandmaster Flash overlooking the handful of tables in this airy space.

Aside from the bakery, you can also find Brooklyn Boy at farmers’ markets across the city, including local ones like the Marrickville Organic Food Markets and Summer Hill’s Flour Mill Markets. “I love my local Inner West customers,” says Shafran. “They’re often creative, they’re chilled, and they know and appreciate good food.”

Brooklyn Boy Bagels can be found at 19 Carrington Road, or for more details or home delivery, visit www.brooklynboy.com.au