Koko Lists
Start a new list
Log in
Sign up
← New random battle
Koko Battle
Tap your pick.
Tompkins Square Bagels
Tompkins Square Bagels opened in the East Village in 2012, building a devoted modern following through a combination of traditional boiled-and-baked bagel technique and an unusually extensive, creatively flavored menu of specialty cream cheeses and sandwich combinations. Its willingness to experiment with a much wider range of cream cheese flavors and specialty sandwich builds than most traditional bagel shops offer gave it a distinctly more contemporary identity, appealing to a younger East Village clientele alongside longtime traditional bagel loyalists. The shop's rapid rise to prominence within just a few years of opening, becoming a regularly cited "best of New York" bagel destination despite its relatively recent founding compared to the city's many decades-old bagel institutions, reflected genuine quality recognition rather than simple nostalgia. For a New York bagels list, Tompkins Square Bagels is the essential "the modern favorite" entry — a relatively young East Village shop that's earned its way into the city's best-bagel conversation through traditional technique paired with genuinely creative flavor combinations.
VS
Murray's Bagels
Murray's Bagels has operated in Greenwich Village since 1996, building a reputation around a firmly traditionalist approach that includes a notable, long-standing refusal to toast its bagels, a policy the shop maintains on the grounds that a properly fresh bagel should never need toasting in the first place. That specific stance became something of a local point of debate and even minor controversy among customers accustomed to ordering their bagels toasted elsewhere, and Murray's has held to the policy for decades as a matter of genuine culinary principle rather than simple stubbornness. The shop's dense, chewy, traditionally boiled bagels and its extensive selection of smoked fish and spreads have made it one of Greenwich Village's most consistently recommended bagel destinations, its no-toasting policy ultimately becoming as much a point of pride as a point of contention. For a New York bagels list, Murray's is the essential "we don't toast, and we mean it" entry — a Greenwich Village institution whose famously firm no-toasting policy reflects a genuine, decades-held conviction about what a properly made bagel should be.
Next battle
Full comparison
About Tompkins Square Bagels
About Murray's Bagels
Popular Battles
1984 vs. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
1 votes
Friends vs. Curb Your Enthusiasm
1 votes
Ideogram vs. Sora
1 votes
Navy Pier vs. Bishop Museum
1 votes
Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree vs. Skittles
1 votes
George Carlin vs. Oprah Winfrey
1 votes
