Bigger, fluffier, spicier: How Britain fell for New York bagels

"My grandma doesn't like my bagels," laughs Maya Black, co-founder of Bread Flower bagel bakery in Manchester. It's nothing personal, apparently; it's just that Black's New York-style bagels are a different beast from the bagels — or, as they're historically called, beigels — his grandmother grew up buying at their local Jewish grocery store. There's no corned beef, and rather than sandwich fillings, New York bagels come with "schmears" - variations of cream cheese mixed with everything from herbs, olives and horseradish to honey and blueberries. Filled with seeds, they are bigger, chewier and tangier. Some might even say they're tastier, though that seems sacrilegious given the hallowed place traditional bagels hold in the hearts of the Jewish community.

This What can be said with some certainty is that New York-style bagels are becoming a trend in Manchester, London, Leicester and Edinburgh – cities that have long been home to Diaspora Jewish communities. It's a trend that, in London at least, seems to have started in lockdown, when many who could have taken up baking. New York expats, or those who had lived in New York and fell in love with bagels there, missed their distinct flavor and texture and decided to recreate them.

"Normally I would have gone back to New York every six weeks and fed on bagels," says New Yorker-cum-Londoner Dan Martensen. , because they love them too, and when I couldn't do that, we missed them. I am a photographer by profession, so I had time to experiment during confinement. He is now a photographer and co-founder of It's Bagels!, which sells bagels and schmears outside Caravan Coffee Roasters in King's Cross and online. He hopes to...