Barely open a New York minute and It’s Bagels has Londoners queuing around the block to sample its indelibly NYC menu of bagels, schmears, smoked fish and deli salads ­– which is wild. More so as it’s the brainchild of in-demand fashion and documentary photographer, Mr Dan Martensen. A born and bred New Yorker, Martensen’s images regularly grace the covers and editorials of renowned titles, such as Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar.

One would think high fashion and high carbs make an unholy match. But when lockdown deprived the London resident of regular access to his beloved baked goods, he committed himself to recreating them at home. And he really committed – partnering with Caravan’s head baker, Mr Jack Ponting, and fine-tuning a recipe that could stand up to those back home. Their dedication to that dough paid off handsomely.

Six months into It’s Bagels’ life as a consistently sold-out pop-up and delivery service, Martensen began planning his first bricks and mortar site. His abiding goal, as he explains, is to make “everything in the place: top-down, unapologetically New York. Everything I love about bagels in NY – I’m trying to do it all at 110 per cent. So, we open early and bake them fresh. Because that hot fresh bagel is part of the ritual. We put more toppings on our everything bagels than anyone else. A bagel shop owner in New York might think I’m insane, because I’m cutting my margins. But I wanted to go to 11 – to be outrageous.”

In New York, bagels are a whole thing. They’re ubiquitous yet storied. Contemporary and nostalgic. Handy on the run and worth savouring over precious weekend hours. As Martensen’s says, “this isn’t haute cuisine – it’s soul food.” Other cities may boast strong bagel offers, such as Montreal with its honeyed dough, and London with its banging beigels, but New York is the epicentre of bagel culture. Precisely what makes their larger, crunchier, maltier bagels so addictive is a matter of much dispute. Smarter to just enjoy.

Believed to have been invented by Polish Jewish bakers in the 13th century, the bagel was initially consumed by those communities alone until local Christians cottoned on to the bajgiel’s suitability as a daily staple. In Jewish circles, the bagel (beygal in Yiddish) assumed deeper significances. With their distinctive round shape, evocative of the circle of life, they were associated with new life and gifted to pregnant women and midwives and became intrinsic to mourning rituals.

When vast numbers of Eastern European Jews emigrated to New York in the 19th and 20th centuries, bagels came, too. Being cheap – for bagels are composed of solely flour, water, yeast, salt (and, in New York, barley malt) – they sustained these impoverished new New Yorkers through truly grim times. Eventually, sick of endless toil for scant reward, more than 300 bagel bakers unionised, then the mafia got involved: another whole thing.

Still, it took decades upon decades for non-Jews to catch onto to the bagels’ brilliance. Indeed, even in 1960, The New York Times enlightened its readers on this ethnic food by explaining that a bagel is… “an unsweetened doughnut with rigor mortis”. Jump-cut to 2020 and (according to The National Geographic) 202 million Americans were projected to eat bagels that very year.

Now it seems Londoners are catching on. Not to what a bagel is – for London’s Jewish bakeries have been going strong since the mid-19th century – but to the specific pleasures and possibilities of New York-style bagels. And that’s largely down to Martensen with major props also due to Papo’s Bagels in Dalston. In the few days since its launch, the line for It’s Bagels has only gotten longer. Having devoured their “The Works” on an everything bagel with a this-is-so-good smile plastered on my face all the while; I can see why. Generously, even with all this mayhem going on, Martensen took the time to share his favourite bagel spots.