‘Sold about one million bagels’: The Brisbane bagel shop diners can’t get enough of

A Queensland bagel shop is bringing in the dough with their authentic, hand-made bagels and cracking cold brew coffee.

The Classy Lox cured salmon bagel at O Bagel in Brisbane City.

I had to try O Bagel in Brisbane’s CBD not because of the food, but the coffee. On a podcast I listen to, one of the presenters was raving about the cafe’s caramel oat milk cold brew.

She lives on the Gold Coast where O Bagel’s owner Nick Jang started the eatery three years ago and now has two stores – one in Broadbeach and the other in Southport. The podcaster said the chilled brew had become her new “absolute favourite coffee” on the GC and she had already converted dozens of her friends to it.

Naturally, I needed to see what all the fuss was about.

“God that’s good,” says my friend after a single sip.

And it is. It’s sweet from the oat milk, sugary from the caramel and highly quaffable. But it’s not for the hard-core coffee connoisseur.

This is a drink for the people who don’t really like the taste of coffee, who put sugar or flavoured syrups in their brews to mask coffee’s natural bitterness and intensity.

If you want a serious coffee, don’t order this. If you want a delicious drink along the lines of a milky bubble tea – order two because one’s so good it’s just not enough.

O Bagel do serious coffee too, however – think macchiatos and piccolos and, of course, flat whites and all the rest; they also do more fun cold brews like those whipped with coconut water or condensed milk; plus hot and iced teas and chai and matcha lattes.

All their drinks are, of course, designed to be paired with one of the venue’s signature bagels.

Now bagels are a beast of a bread to make. There are just so many areas where the process can go awry, from making the dough and the fermentation to floating them in a water bath and the final baking stage.

It’s why so many bagels you try are too dense or stodgy, too soft or too hard, or chewier than overcooked tripe. It’s for this reason I always order bagels with a degree of trepidation.

But O Bagel, which has sold about one million bagels since launching, ensures any form of hesitation is unwarranted.

Here the product is fermented overnight, rolled by hand and carefully baked until the inside is as fluffy as a Persian cat with just a little signature chew, while the outside is crunchy perfection.

The 'Drop the Beef' bagel at O Bagel in Brisbane City.

There are six different varieties available: plain, sesame, everything, poppy seed, spinach and cheese, and blueberry – with guests then able to match them with a sandwich style, such as the “NYC” with egg salad, wood-smoked ham, lettuce, swiss cheese and tomato relish or “Chicken run” with smoked chicken, cos lettuce and herbed truffle ranch.

There are also simpler varieties like those with just cream cheese or even a special Biscoff spread.

We order the “Drop the beef” ($18) on a spinach and cheese bagel and the “Classy Lox” ($18) on a poppy seed bagel.

Both bagels are stuffed harder than a taxidermy project with fillings – including enough raw red onion to give you bad breath for a year – but they are equally delicious.

After abolishing some of the unwanted onion, the “Drop the beef” is flavourful and nourishing with slices of warm, slow-cooked beef brisket fused together with melted fior di latte cheese, alongside rocket and both jalapenos and chipotle sour cream for a little heat.

The Classy Lox is the classic combination of cured salmon – this time made in-house, curing for 48 hours – baby capers, tomato and herby cream cheese, of which there is so much it propels itself out of the bagel’s centre hole.

Next time I would ask for maybe a third of the onion, but I would definitely order it again.

Service is a simple and swift affair with customers ordering at the counter and taking a number, with food quickly delivered to your table whether in the sunny, umbrella-covered courtyard or the long, dark and industrial dining room.

As sandwich shops continue to pop up like pimples on a teenager’s face, what’s on offer now has to be good to survive, and at O Bagel, it’s not just good, it’s great.

O BAGEL

Elizabeth St, Brisbane City

Obagel.com.au

Open 7.30am-3pm daily

Verdict

Food 4

Service 3.5

Ambience 3

Value 4

Overall 3.5