Owner Milena Pagan says she actually perfected her popular bagels at home, using some of the science she learned while attending the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Then they are hand-rolled, boiled and baked into more than a dozen varieties with a satisfyingly soft and chewy center. Rebelle Artisan Bagels are prepared with the same ingredients you’d use at home – yeast, flour, water, salt and sugar – if you were brave enough, or ambitious enough, to make them at home. So, without further ado, our survey of seven bagel shops in the Providence area, in no particular order: Everyone has a favorite, but we concentrated on a few. And we know we didn’t get to all the bagel shops. We visited shops that concentrate on bagels, not, for example, doughnut shops that also serve bagels. These are bagels that are so delicious, you can eat them whole, right out of your hand, and that it would be a sacrilege to toast. These are bagels that demand a schmear of house-made cream cheese, whether plain or flavored. These are genuine New York style bagels: Dense and chewy on the inside with a slight tang, and golden brown and lightly crisp on the outside. And this isn’t the variety so common outside of New York City, “bagels” that are basically dry white bread shaped in a circle. You can now get a freshly baked bagel at shops all around the city. The options were sparse and dry, and, well, kind of pathetic: frozen hockey pucks of bagels in the supermarket’s frozen aisle, or maybe a mass-produced and pale imitation of a bagel in the supermarket’s bakery.įortunately, those days are now just a memory. You can order online from her website.Once upon a time not too long ago, Providence was a bagel desert. People ask Pagan about the water, among other things, and she said, "Providence's water makes perfect bagels."ĭetails: Rebelle Artisan Bagels, 110 Doyle Ave., Providence,. Last week it was a black squid ink version with black sesame seeds in homage to Halloween. And she makes a wild card bagel each Friday. Though she does just that to make her pumpernickel bagels each weekend. It's simply too expensive to buy them retail. That can be confining she said, because they currently have no wholesale source for whole wheat flour or other specialty flours. It also includes King Arthur Flour from Vermont, the only one she'll use. That includes Borealis Coffee in a blend she worked on with the East Providence roaster, sniffing and tasting bean after bean until she found one that was fruity and nutty and not too dark. "I start with good ingredients," Pagan said. The secret for all the products is not such a secret, she said. She offers varieties that include vegan (made with cashews), chive, caramelized onion, pumpkin spice, beet and horseradish, and chipotle bacon. Her cream cheeses are a great vehicle for adding fresh flavors, Pagan said. The menu includes chopped liver and pastrami and dill lox. She's grown the menu beyond bagels to include sandwiches on bagels and she makes pickled salads, whitefish salad and chicken and egg salad. on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, all are filled with diners headed to work. ![]() They cleaned up the space that was the Corner Store, opened it up by exposing the windows that were hidden with fridges and freezers, and by adding a window bar and tables for spots to sit. With her baker Chris Zimmerman on board and her boyfriend Darcy Coleman, a software engineer, offering another set of hands, she got to work. Her landlord reached out to her to offer her the space because his wife was a fan on Instagram. And that's how she came to move into Doyle Street. There's instant gratification and feedback when you feed people, she added.Īt each step, she documented her journey on Instagram with photos of beautiful bagels. "I asked myself, 'What just happened?'" Pagan said. But when it was over, she felt exhilarated. She made some 300 bagels, working the dough in her home-size Kitchen Aid mixer. It was mayhem, she recalled, with a line out the door. She did her first pop-up bagel event last January at the former Kitchen restaurant on Federal Hill when the caterer Laughing Gorilla took over the space for a time. She brought her bagel making to Hope & Main, the culinary incubator in Warren. ![]() "You'd be amazed to see how many people put bread under a microscope." Still her research showed her some fascinating work scientists are doing with yeast and flour. "I knew with practice I could do it," she said. Her first batch of bagels, made in her kitchen, were "horrible." But she got into not just baker mode but science, and read up on everything flour and water. ![]() Pagan began her bagel journey less than a year ago when she left CVS after a three-year stint that brought her to Rhode Island from the hallowed Cambridge halls.
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