(Baker’s Crust Bagel offers a slice of New York with skyscraping sandwiches. Courtesy photo.)
By Marisa Marsey
Nostalgic for New York City? Haven’t yet gotten to Gotham? You could watch “When Harry Met Sally” or read some Meg Wolitzer for a fix. Better still, schlep on over to freshly-rolled out Baker’s Crust Bagel in Virginia Beach.
John Stein, founder of Baker’s Crust Artisan Kitchen and Quemar Wood-Fired Cocina as well as a maven of quintessential New York noshes, secured exclusive rights in Virginia to produce NYC’s Ess-a-Bagel (Eat a Bagel in German and Yiddish), oft voted number one for flavor and chew in its very opinionated hometown. Stein calls it “a passion project and a labor of love.”
Make that labor-intensive love. Bagels running the gamut from plain, poppy and pumpernickel to whole-wheat-everything are delivered partially baked from Ess-a-Bagel (so yes, that’s New Yawk waw-tuh) and finished in the ovens daily – throughout the day – at this quick-service Hilltop North storefront.
Whitefish salad (available in an overstuffed sandwich or from the grab-n-go shelves) is prepared from scratch here; staff clean and debone the fish themselves. They concoct cream cheese in a swath of flavors as big as Broadway (including scallion, smoked salmon, maple bacon, jalapeño, even seasonal pumpkin spice and a vegan variety). They bake authentic NY-style cheesecake following a formula developed in conjunction with the Carnegie Deli and they make their own chocolate babka (cue Seinfeld – Season 5, Episode 13, “The Dinner Party”).
“Top quality Gaspé Nova cold-smoked salmon is the same as you’d get at Russ & Daughters, hot pastrami is hand-carved to order the Katz Deli-way,” says Adam Cohen, marketing and operations director. “The goal was to build the closest experience around iconic New York flavors and to skimp on nothing in the process.”
It’s practically Breakfast at Tiffany’s!
Stein and his team worked shoulder-to-shoulder with Ess-a-Bagel’s owners to maintain the brand, right down to the corny, kitschy posters (“How do you keep a bagel from getting away? Put lox on it!”) and coffee cup light fixtures.
After polishing off a half sour pickle or black and white cookie or grabbing a quart container of matzoh ball soup to go, you half expect to step out into a sea of honking yellow cabs and street peddlers hawking faux Gucci rather than a suburban parking lot.
But there are local touches such as coffee by Three Ships Coffee Roasters brewed at the coffee bar, near where staffers whip up smoothies and açai bowls.
Perhaps most emblematic of this NYC-VB copacetic coupling, locally-based Benevolent Design Co. handcrafted the communal table out of northeast pine salvaged from a building on the Lower East Side (66 Clinton Street to be precise on provenance). Like everything else here, you’re bound to fall in love with it. In a New York minute.
1624 Laskin Road, #754, Virginia Beach. 757-904-1923. Catering available. bakerscrustbagel.com
