Best bagel sandwich in Sydney 2026
Critics have long criticized the bagel sandwich, but they’ve never tried anything like it before.
Hendrix Coffee Company
Cafe$
Sandwiches don’t usually excite me, but I’ll head to Cronulla for the handmade, boiled and baked bagels at Hendrix. The bakery’s owner, Todd Rosenfeld, spent many years perfecting his recipe, transforming its durability and usefulness into culinary art.
Take the salmon bagel: a hand-shaped ring of fluffy, long-leavened dough, lined with white paper and cut right down the middle. When you cut it apart, the section is enhanced by a thick layer of Neufchatel cream cheese with pink pickled onions, tomatoes, slices of seared wild-caught Alaskan salmon, and fried capers.
In many ways this could fall into the sandwich category. After all, what is a sandwich if not something between bread? Does bagel count as bread? What about a donut? Is a burger a sandwich? Does it matter? I don’t know.
What I do know is that a bagel is more exciting than sliced bread; especially in Sydney, where specialty sandwich shops have reached critical mass (I did a quick count of sandwich shops on Google Maps and stopped counting at 100).
Former New York Times restaurant critic Pete Wells condemned the famous bagel sandwich to follow GQ Article arguing that bagels are too chewy and soggy to compete with bread. But Rosenfeld is not chasing tradition. The recipe he has developed over the past seven years avoids these potential pitfalls to create a bagel that belongs in Cronulla; It is especially softer, has a higher rise and the faint scent of slow-rising dough.
“We wanted to create a bagel that was the size of a New York bagel and had the flavor profile of a sourdough bagel, but was more consistent and elevated,” says Rosenfeld.
“It was definitely something that took a long time to figure out how to do it right, even with the seeds we were using. It was just a matter of getting the ratio and weight right.”
Each bagel requires stretching, folding and resting the dough for two days. On the last day, Rosenfeld boils the bagels in honey water, coats them with carefully selected black, white, poppy and cumin seeds and bakes them until they turn golden brown.
A level of care you wouldn’t expect from such a humble cafe. A short walk from Cronulla Station and Gunnamatta Bay Baths, it’s a small, simple venue with a shaded terrace overlooking the street. There are a handful of tables, all outside, and it’s the kind of place where regulars ride fat-tire e-bikes or pop in after a walk with their dogs (treats are available at the counter).
Order directly from the window that opens into the kitchen. You’ll probably see Rosenfeld there making bagel sandwiches. She pays as much attention to the nine available filling ingredients as she does the dough: she makes blueberry-lemon jam spread like a jammy jewel-toned work of art atop cream cheese; steams a silky egg custard to put on a morning bagel with bacon, American cheese, and scallions; and the chicken schnitzel bagel is nothing short of terrific.
The crumbled chicken is huge, stretching far beyond the confines of the bagel’s golden crust, and is paired with lettuce, American cheese, cowboy butter, and pepperoni mayonnaise. Eat it with fermented peppers.
The cafe offers other things too. Toasts, Reuben Hills coffee, strawberry matcha. They’re good, but it’s the bagels that make Hendrix your next weekend choice when you need to fuel up before hitting the beach.
Three more to try in Cronulla
Mansfield Coffee, Caringbah
Cousins and hospo masters Nathan and Josiah Nicotra make a great flat white, but they also offer some of the most adventurous and award-winning coffees Australia has to offer as part of their “coffee album” collection, which ranges from $12 to $35 per cup.
Good to know: Prefer iced matcha? Go Russian Matcha is in Cronulla for coconut clouds, salted caramel matcha and maple cloud sea salt matcha.
32 Mansfield Avenue, Caringbah, instagram.com/mansfieldcoffee
Pure Bread Bakery, Kirrawee
After 12 years of operation you know how good a bakery this busy is. Owners Nick and Emma Tabet are known for their slow-fermented sourdough, but it’s hard to leave the cake cabinet without an extra treat. Try the poached rhubarb-filled donut, mini pecan pie, or complete with the brisket roll with house-made smoked brisket, fried egg, cheese and chutney.
Good to know: The same brisket is served at: Marrickville cafe Angus’sIt is also jointly owned by Tabets.
19 Monroe Avenue, Kirrawee, purebreadbakery.com.au
Lebanese, eat Cronulla
From hummus to falafel, everything on the menu is made from scratch to provide “Lebanese food that feels like it came from a family kitchen,” says restaurant owner Tony Moarbes. Its restaurant is equally suitable for a quick and filling meal as it is for a sit-down experience with Lebanese wine pairings and Arabic coffee martinis.
Good to know: Roasted cauliflower topped with tarator, zhoug, pomegranate and sumac bulbs is a bestseller.
98 Cronulla Street, Cronulla, eatlebanese.com.au
Good Food reviews are booked anonymously and independently paid. A restaurant cannot pay for a review or inclusion on a list. Good Food Guide.
Bianca Crovat- Bianca is Good Food’s Sydney dining out and restaurant editor.
