Rubinstein has the best bagels in Seattle. I moved to Seattle from NYC and I have searched high and low. There are a lot of good bagels in Seattle. A few great bagels. And then there’s Rubinstein. If you’re looking for your fix, this is the place.I’ve tried quite a few of their bagels. My personal fav is the salted rosemary, but you can’t go wrong with any of the classics. My girlfriend loves the cacio e pepe bagel. Make sure your read the customization options—there are a ton of ways to make the bagel yours.I will say that this place often has a line, which can be slow. That’s because the bagels are delicious and they are making it to order. There wouldn’t be a line if it wasn’t worth it. They are also on the expensive end for bagels. So maybe don’t come here when you’re looking for quick and cheap. I think they’re well worth the spend when you can, however.
I got a salted rosemary bagel with herb and garlic cream cheese. It came toasted which was nice. Overall was good but a but expensive; it is Seattle where everything is expensive, but $2 to get cream cheese on the $2.50 bagel felt excessive.
I'm really surprised by all the mediocre reviews because I love the bagels here (especially compared to the other bagel shops in the area)! I tried the cacio e pepe bagel which had a nice, crisp exterior and fluffy interior. I got it as part of a lox sandwich which came with a hefty smear of cream cheese and deliciously fresh lox on top. They serve Olympia coffee too which is awesome!Very limited street parking in the area so I'd recommend going early or be ready to park more in the residential area and walk a bit.
Mmmm... Oh boy, they don't skimp on the lox. Worth the premium. It's hard to find good bagels in this city!
The space felt cramped - especially the passageway where you pick up pre-ordered food or the order you just placed. The bench style seating was comfortable, however, just contributed to the feeling that the Cafe space wasn't being optimized. I really enjoy Olympia coffee yet the drip coffee I ordered seemed to be weakly brewed. The bagels are so-so. They look good and the flavor options are wonderful. I just found my bagel to be dense and not the fluffy consistency I prefer in a bagel or bialy. The goat cheese schmear was good.
Just moved from NYC. Other reviews are accurate. Bagels here too hard, especially combined with runny cream cheese. The skin of the bagel is too dry/hard. Skin should be thinner and crispier.
Love the bagels! I usually get the everything bagel and the lox creme cheese. Pairs well with sliced cucumber and onion. So good!
Ehhhh. NYC native, Hassidic Jewish bagel regular when I lived (on the wrong side) of Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn here to say that these bagels are hard, overpriced, and made of sourdough. All of these factors make them not only unpalatable but also nowhere near as good as where I come from.Sourdough? Icky.Also. And this isn't this baker's fault, is their lack of NYC tap water to boil. NYC's water is literally mountain spring water tapped in the Catskill mountains and the best anywhere. I had to look up why this matters: its low concentrations of calcium and magnesium, which makes the water softer.I would have paid a premium for bagels that were similar to what I grew up with. But I might as well just buy the bagel shaped bread from Safeway because at least it can be chewed and tastes decent.Also there is a frozen option from Amazon Prime now to get H and H bagels directly from Manhattan that are made with New York City water so that's a thing too and they're way less expensive.
These are some of the best bagels in the city if you're looking for firm and crisp bagel outsides and fluffy, doughy, tear-able insides. Their specialty and seasonal bagels are always delicious!
Service was fast and friendly but the bagel was very disappointing - flat and painfully chewy (also weirdly misshapen but that doesn’t bother me). Most of the other bagels I saw looked better so guessing it was just a bad one that didn’t get filtered out.