The 'Best Bagel' In America Is A Texas Shop With One-Of-A-Kind, Award-Winning Techniques

New York City may be synonymous with bagels, but in a shocking twist, an eatery from Dallas, Texas, took home the Best Bagel award at New York BagelFest in 2025. This annual competition to find the best bagels around crowned Starship Bagel in Dallas as the crème de la crème (or schmear de la schmear) of bagels. Dallas may be the place where Tex-Mex was invented, but since this is the second time that Starship has won the coveted best bagel award, this city may soon be known as the spot for bagels, too. This Dallas favorite took the top spot in 2023 before falling to second place in 2024, which led owner Oren Salomon to try a new technique to recapture the shop's former glory (not that runner-up is anything to sniff at). 

For the 2025 competition, Salomon took a risk by trying a par-baking technique he'd only recently learned. This means baking the bagels in an oven until they're nearly done, freezing them on dry ice to ship them to New York, and then heating them in a convection oven before serving. Clearly, the risk paid off, as Starship's plain bagel took the top prize at this invite-only event. Starship also came in first for the category Best Showmanship and was runner-up for Schmear of the Year (for their garam masala flavor) and Most Creative.

With their mass production and popularity, bagels have lost their history, purpose, and even flavor, as they're steamed instead of boiled and made by machine instead of by hand. Starship seeks to return the bagel to its original glory, connecting it with the history and culture that first brought it across the Atlantic to the shores of America. While the shop uses a bagel-forming machine for the dough, each bagel is boiled and baked on its own, hand-tested throughout the process to ensure it meets the high-quality standards of Starship. 

Starship has three locations: its original spot in Lewisville, where all the bagels are made (and customers can watch the process), plus one in North Dallas and another Downtown, which is home to America's largest contiguous arts district. Each shop is open seven days a week, from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. Flavors can sell out quickly, but bagels are made on a two-hour cycle, so you can try your luck by returning later if your favorite is sold out. 

The menu has the classics, including plain, everything, and cinnamon raisin, plus plenty of cream cheese flavors to choose from, like fermented jalapeño and scallion. You can also opt for something more out-there, like a pretzel bagel or the 2024 BagelFest-winning basil schmear. The menu helpfully indicates what Guy Fieri ate on "Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives" in 2025 (garlic and pretzel bagels with vegan schmear), and you can pre-order online to skip the line.