Peter Pastan honed his bagel palate on the Grand Concourse in the Bronx whenever he visited relatives as a youngster. Later he ate them at 3 AM, hot from the oven of a now defunct Silver Spring spot. So after crafting the Naples-style pizza served at Two Amys to meet his own exacting standards, he recently turned his attention to improving its brunch. His classic bagel is made the old-fashioned way with dough that is fermented, boiled, hand twisted and baked. It's topped with made-in-house cream cheese and house-smoked salmon. Served weekends only, along with bialys (a flat roll topped with savory onions), it has NYC expats lining up.
During the week, bagel aficionados can satisfy cravings at Bread Line, where the recipe (which uses traditional boiling and baking techniques) established by its former owner, Mark Furstenberg, results in a product that proves that a bagel is much more than a round bread with a hole.
- Olga Boikess