Meshuggah Bagels opens on West 39th Street

When it comes to authentic New York-style bagels, many Kansas Citians have no frame of reference. Growing up in Stilwell, Kansas, just south of Overland Park, I thought bagels didn’t exist beyond the sad, stale rings at Panera Bread, or the cheesy concoctions at Einstein Bros. (paired with some kind of sugary schmear).

Only when I got a little older did I start hearing rumors of the Big Apple’s famous bagels. Having spent little time on the East Coast, I never imagined the first time I’d try one would be down the street from my old midtown apartment.

Just a couple of weeks ago, Meshuggah Bagels — meshuggah means crazy in Yiddish — started serving old-world-style bagels on West 39th Street, though it had been selling wholesale since last fall. The creation of Pete Linde, a descendant of Jewish immigrants who has baking in his blood, and his wife, Janna, a food-industry executive, Meshuggah’s certified-Kosher bagels are crusty on the outside and chewy inside, containing a secret mix of yeast, malt, sugar and salt.

While the Lindes’ recipe may be undisclosed, their arrival in the neighborhood, known for diverse restaurants, was anything but secretive. On opening weekend, a friend of mine who lives in the area posted a photo to Instagram, which showed a line snaking out the door and into the parking lot. (Meshuggah has its own small parking lot, a big deal on traffic-heavy 39th Street.) Another friend who works down the street said she had been dying to try it, but every time she’d walked down on her break, the line had been too long.

After these reports, I was expecting to stand around for a while on my first visit, but by 1:30 p.m. things seemed to have quieted down. The remaining bagels were piled in a glass case that commanded my attention the moment I walked through the door.

I ordered a salt bagel with nova lox and had a seat in the café, which is furnished with antique-looking wood tables and chairs and has lots of light streaming in through the large windows facing the Loretto across the street. Loaded with rich cream cheese from Green Dirt Farm and a decent amount of salmon, as well as tomato, capers and onions, the sandwich was fresh and filling. The bagel itself was nicely dense, topped with large grains of sea salt. I licked cream cheese from the wrapper while that “Memory” song from the musical Cats played in the café.

When I visited Meshuggah again the following week at 7:30 a.m., I was greeted by another show tune I couldn’t identify, though it felt a bit peppy for my groggy, pre-coffee brain. This time, I tried the whitefish salad on a poppy-seed bagel, and I decided to grab an everything bagel with a schmear to take home to my boyfriend.

While I sat in the café, a steady stream of customers wandered in and out. The woman behind the counter greeted several as though they were already regulars.

“Oh, you’re back again,” she said to one man, who ordered a couple of bagels to go.

Another woman had stopped in to grab a dozen bagels for her co-workers, and before she left, Janna Linde offered her a bonus bagel, fresh from the oven, “to snack on in the car.”

When I unwrapped my whitefish salad and took a bite, I probably had a similar reaction to Janna’s the first time she tried the stuff in New York, at least according to Meshuggah lore — the creamy, savory concoction was, indeed, crazy good.

The older couple at the table next to me seemed to be having a similar experience, both staring out the window in silence, the man occasionally muttering, “This is good,” to no one in particular.

It was so good that when I finished my own bagel, I unwrapped my boyfriend’s and ate half of it. Maybe I have impulse-control issues — or maybe it took me so long to get to know New York-style bagels that I’m just making up for lost time.