Did you ever have a rival? Did you ever become friends with your rival? Did you ever become friends with your rival and then propel that friendship into honey-boiled, wood-fired bagels that people line up on the street just to get a taste of? Probably not, unless you’re Matt Kliegman (The Smile) and Noah Bernamoff (Mile End Deli). In this edition of TOP CHEF, TOP EATS, we chat with Matt and Noah about the sandwiches in their lives and senseless crimes against bagels in their pristine Soho establishment, Black Seed Bagels.
Names: Matt Kliegman and Noah Bernamoff
Astro Sign:
MK: Aries
NB: Cancer
Hometown:
NB: Montreal
MK: Plainview, NY
How did you meet?
NB: We actually met through a friend, Rochelle Goldberg, a long time ago, like, right after The Smile opened and right after Mile End opened. We really connected when we started building at Mile End on Bond Street.
MK: Once you invaded our territory.
NB: Once I invaded. Matt’s a very smart guy. He keeps his enemies close, so he immediately befriended me as a new neighbor. Unfortunately, his plan backfired on him, and we’re now actually friends.
Signature breakfast dish:
NB: I typically don’t really eat breakfast. Usually a bagel with cream cheese is kind of like breakfast for me, if I do eat.
MK: It’s changed. I don’t really eat breakfast all that often now. An egg. Egg sandwich. Egg and bacon.
Sandwich that sums up your childhood:
MK: Peanut butter and jelly sandwich on white bread.
NB: Peanut butter and banana on challah. We never had white bread in our house. It was a big faux pas. The whitest bread we had was basically even less healthy white bread, which was white bread with egg in it, which is challah.
Crunchy or creamy?
NB and MK: Creamy.
NB: Even though I wanted crunchy, but my mom wouldn’t let me have it.
Sandwich that you’d eat off the ground:
MK: None. I have a zero-second rule.
NB: I would eat a foie gras sandwich off the ground. It would also depend off what ground.
What’s the worst crime you can commit against a bagel?
NB: We have such a long list. The biggest crime you can commit is by baking it the way a big commercial bagel bakery might bake it with dough conditioners and not boil it, just bake it. A bagel that has no distinction whatsoever with a sandwich roll.
MK: I don’t like when people get crazy with their cream cheeses. I’ll be honest—I don’t like raisins in anything in a bagel. I don’t like it in the bagel; I don’t like it in the cream cheese. I’ve seen walnut raisin cream cheese. Ugh. It’s gross.
NB: I was so embarrassed when [my friend] sent me over to a bagel shop to get him something because I was on my way over to his place, and he made me get a walnut raisin cream cheese on a cinnamon raisin bagel.
MK: Ugh, oh my god!
NB: I almost just ordered him sesame will scallion cream cheese for him because I couldn’t deal with it.
Favorite flavored cream cheese at Black Seed:
NB: We do one very unique cream cheese, which is a tobiko cream cheese, which is made with tobiko caviar, flying fish roe.
MK: Our lox and dill spread. It’s not u
Names: Matt Kliegman and Noah Bernamoff
Astro Sign:
MK: Aries
NB: Cancer
Hometown:
NB: Montreal
MK: Plainview, NY
How did you meet?
NB: We actually met through a friend, Rochelle Goldberg, a long time ago, like, right after The Smile opened and right after Mile End opened. We really connected when we started building at Mile End on Bond Street.
MK: Once you invaded our territory.
NB: Once I invaded. Matt’s a very smart guy. He keeps his enemies close, so he immediately befriended me as a new neighbor. Unfortunately, his plan backfired on him, and we’re now actually friends.
Signature breakfast dish:
NB: I typically don’t really eat breakfast. Usually a bagel with cream cheese is kind of like breakfast for me, if I do eat.
MK: It’s changed. I don’t really eat breakfast all that often now. An egg. Egg sandwich. Egg and bacon.
Sandwich that sums up your childhood:
MK: Peanut butter and jelly sandwich on white bread.
NB: Peanut butter and banana on challah. We never had white bread in our house. It was a big faux pas. The whitest bread we had was basically even less healthy white bread, which was white bread with egg in it, which is challah.
Crunchy or creamy?
NB and MK: Creamy.
NB: Even though I wanted crunchy, but my mom wouldn’t let me have it.
Sandwich that you’d eat off the ground:
MK: None. I have a zero-second rule.
NB: I would eat a foie gras sandwich off the ground. It would also depend off what ground.
What’s the worst crime you can commit against a bagel?
NB: We have such a long list. The biggest crime you can commit is by baking it the way a big commercial bagel bakery might bake it with dough conditioners and not boil it, just bake it. A bagel that has no distinction whatsoever with a sandwich roll.
MK: I don’t like when people get crazy with their cream cheeses. I’ll be honest—I don’t like raisins in anything in a bagel. I don’t like it in the bagel; I don’t like it in the cream cheese. I’ve seen walnut raisin cream cheese. Ugh. It’s gross.
NB: I was so embarrassed when [my friend] sent me over to a bagel shop to get him something because I was on my way over to his place, and he made me get a walnut raisin cream cheese on a cinnamon raisin bagel.
MK: Ugh, oh my god!
NB: I almost just ordered him sesame will scallion cream cheese for him because I couldn’t deal with it.
Favorite flavored cream cheese at Black Seed:
NB: We do one very unique cream cheese, which is a tobiko cream cheese, which is made with tobiko caviar, flying fish roe.
MK: Our lox and dill spread. It’s not u