Bold flavors and local reinventions were at the forefront of Sunday’s inaugural BagelFest West, where bagel makers from California, as well as Seattle and Colorado Springs, offered their best bagels plus unconventional takes on the bagel sandwich — from a Passover-style gefilte fish Hillel sandwich with beet horseradish and charoset served by San Diego’s Mission Bagel to a coffee bomb bagel by Tom and Tiffany Levy’s Uncle Stevey’s in El Segundo.
“The bites that we’ve seen here today are some of the most innovative and groundbreaking bagel bites that I’ve ever had,” said Sam Silverman, who founded the original New York BagelFest in 2019 and goes by the social media handle Bagel Ambassador.
Silverman has watched the bagel scene west of the Rockies explode, prompting him to bring BagelFest to Los Angeles. It was a sold-out event, with more than 1,000 bagel aficionados from all of California gathered at Wilshire Boulevard Temple’s Audrey Irmas Pavilion.
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More than 1,000 bagel lovers at the sold-out BagelFest West in Los Angeles sampled classic and innovative bagels representing an evolving scene west of the Rockies.
“It was about time that someone actually was able to understand how important bagels are to Los Angeles,” said David Castillo, general manager of Alex and Sun Sohn’s Calic Bagel, known for its viral garlic cream cheese bagels and for bringing Asian flavors and techniques to its stuffed bagels. “It’s always been about East Coast, Montreal, and I’m glad that we’re finally getting recognized.”
“L.A. really has its own scene and its own thing going,” said J.D. Rocchio, co-owner of Belle’s Bagel in Highland Park. “What makes an L.A. bagel an L.A. bagel is we’re all very self-determined … people are pulling from different cultural references, regional references and I’d say if you were to make an L.A. bagel it means you’re doing your own thing.”
The bagel shops competed for awards in flavor, texture and creativity, including categories for best bagel, best sandwich, schmear of the year and a people’s choice award. Only 16% of the shops that applied to participate, according to Silverman, were selected to showcase at the festival, which was presented by King Arthur Baking Company in collaboration with the Jewish Food Lab at the Wilshire Boulevard Temple, which regularly organizes culinary events to promote Jewish culture.
“I grew up eating bagels from Dunkin Donuts and the grocery store,” said Silverman, a Massachusetts native who started the festival after noticing the lack of a bagel-centered event in New York. “I didn’t know how good bagels could be until I moved to New York 12 years ago, and that’s what sparked the passion and led me down this rabbit hole.”
Last year’s New York BagelFest drew more than 2,000 attendees. And with the success of Sunday’s BagelFest West, Silverman has already decided to bring the event back to Los Angeles next year.
San Diego-based Mission Bagel was one of the award-winning vendors at BagelFest, winning second place for best sandwich.
(Angela Osorio / Los Angeles Times)
“When I was a kid, bagels were at Canter’s Deli … or they were in the grocery store,” said Julie Fisher, a BagelFest West attendee and Studio City resident. “Now, there’s a lot of independent bagel establishments for even more choices.”
Newer bagel makers also showcased at the event, including Rise Bagels, which opened in Irvine in November 2025. Although a Seattle bagelry, Hey Bagel, won the overall Best Bagel prize, Rise won the Best of the West and Most Creative awards for two entries: its egg salad bagel with Tokyo negi schmear and a jammy quail egg and its seasonal fruit bagel with fresh strawberries, cookie butter schmear, Asian pear and a beet strawberry ganache.
“We wanted a bagel shop that is more representative of what we want to see in terms of elevating bagels to the next level,” said co-owner John Park, a New Jersey native. “There’s so much talent elevating something that’s been such a traditional thing and the fusion, the different types of concepts that are coming, is making this industry … a lot more fun and exciting to be a part of.”
“I actually flew down from San Francisco for the event when I saw it was going on,” said attendee Matt Diamond, an L.A. native.
For Diamond, it is the love, craftsmanship and quality of ingredients that define an L.A. bagel.
“The toppings, the love that goes into them all, is a real thing,” he said. “[I’ve] grown up with bagels. It is a part of family, it’s part of culture, it’s who I am.”
“Bagels matter not just for what they represent,” Silverman said at the awards ceremony. “They are a daily bread. They’re sustenance for both the people that eat them and the craftspeople who dedicate their lives and livelihoods to making them. And they have the power to bring people together.”
