Brick Lane bagels: Beigel Bake and the Beigel Shop
The Brick Lane bagel is two shops a few doors apart towards the north end of the street. Beigel Bake is the white sign at 159 Brick Lane; the Beigel Shop is the yellow sign at 155. Beigel Bake is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, which is the single most useful fact in E1. Go for hot salt beef with mustard and a pickle. Go at any hour. Expect a queue late on a Friday or Saturday.
Beigel Bake, 159 Brick Lane
This is the one most people mean. Beigel Bake's own site lists it at 159 Brick Lane, open 24 hours, 7 days a week, and names its two bestsellers: hand-carved salt beef with mustard and pickles, and smoked salmon with cream cheese. The salt beef is the point. A pink slab sits in the window and gets carved into thick slices to order, and you eat it standing on the pavement out of a paper bag.
The history is family history. According to Time Out's 2022 account of the two shops, Asher Cohen bought what had been a butcher's shop at number 159 and opened Beigel Bake in 1974 with his brothers Amnon Cohen and Sammy Minzley. Since Asher died in 2018 his sons Daniel and Nathan have run it with their uncles. It is now a three-storey operation, and from the counter you can see straight back into the bakery. Wikipedia also gives 1974 as the founding year, although the shop's own website talks about beigels handmade since 1979; either way, it has been doing the same thing on the same corner for close to half a century.
One thing worth knowing: there is an off-menu order regulars swear by: salt beef with cream cheese, mentioned by one long-time customer in the same Time Out piece. It sounds wrong. It is not.
The Beigel Shop, 155 Brick Lane
The yellow one is older, which surprises people. Time Out traces it to Jonny Cohen, who opened a bakery here in the early 1960s; it was taken over by two brothers in 1987, traded as the Evering Bakery, and became the Beigel Shop in 2002. Over the years the two shops have split the difference: the yellow one sells rainbow beigels and fillings such as bacon, while the white one sticks to the traditional list.
The Beigel Shop has had a harder time recently. Country & Town House reported in 2024 that it had shut over a family dispute about the building and the rent, along with the owner's ill health, and reopened on 26 June with the next generation of the family running it. Its menu covers the same ground as next door: hot salt beef with English mustard and gherkins, salmon and cream cheese, and the rainbow beigels. It has no website of its own, so if you are making a special trip to the yellow sign, look at its recent reviews before you go.
White or yellow
Locals pick a side and stay there. The honest answer is that Beigel Bake is the safer bet for salt beef and has the longer, steadier record, and the Beigel Shop is the one to try if you want something other than the classics or if the white queue is out of the door. Both have been open through the night for years, so whichever side you pick, you will not find it shut.
When to go
- Late on Friday or Saturday: the queue at Beigel Bake is part of the night out, and the people-watching is half the fun.
- Sunday morning: pick one up on the way to Columbia Road Flower Market, a short walk north.
- Any weekday: the queue is shorter and you can actually watch the carving.
What to order
- Hot salt beef with mustard: the order. Add a pickle.
- Smoked salmon and cream cheese: the other bestseller at Beigel Bake.
- Rainbow beigel: at the yellow shop, if you must.
Nearby
You are towards the north end of Brick Lane, a short walk from Shoreditch High Street station. Walk south and you are into the curry houses (see our Brick Lane curry guide); walk north and cross Bethnal Green Road for Boxpark and the rest of our cheap eats in Shoreditch.
