Thanks to mobile internet and my laptop, I can work virtually anywhere as a journalist and editor-in-chief. So, a few days after the opening of Brooklyn Bagel, I decided to move my office to the Zsilip Center on the Danube for a day. I was surprised to find that I wasn’t the only one who had decided to start the day here: At 10 a.m, there were several tables and people came and went non-stop throughout the morning — writes Zsófia Steiner on Zsido.com.
Some people sat alone at a table with a laptop like me, some ate in the company of others, chatting, while again and again, people arrived asking for takeaway. All of this perfectly confirmed what the bagel shop’s operator, Daniel Preiszler, had told me about the restaurant’s goal: to create a kosher place that would compete with the many restaurants in the area, that would step outside the kosher restaurants frequented by tourists and religious locals in Inner-Erzsébetváros [Ed. note: The historic Jewish Quarter in Budapest’s 7th District], and that would fit into the colorful spectrum of Jewish life in Budapest.
„As in our other restaurants, we want to show that something can be uncompromisingly kosher and of high quality.”
Although kosher food is not cheap, the prices here are not exorbitant: They are set at a level that is in line with the area.
„We want everyone to be able to eat kosher without giving up the feeling of Újlipótváros [Ed. note: A neighborhood in Budapest’s 13th District],” says Dániel Preiszler.
The wonderful interior; the work of the bagel shop’s manager, Dalma Bohus; and the delicious dishes convincingly convey this aim. And because they’re open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., you can fill your day with everything from a morning coffee to a bagel for dinner. But why bagels?
The bagel is a traditional Jewish food, brought to the New World by Polish emigrants and which soon conquered America. In addition to the New York style (cream cheese with salmon), you can also try bagels with eggs, avocado, cream cheese and tuna. And that’s just the savory offerings; you can also order bagels with chocolate or hazelnut cream. All this, plus a myriad of fresh and delicious pastries, could easily make this restaurant, named after Brooklyn, a favorite bagel spot in the neighborhood and all of Budapest.
