Given the prominent place bagels hold in American popular food culture, it's strange to note how relatively underserved Nashville remains when it comes to this particular bread product. It's been several years since we got a new local bagel shop — East Nashville's popular Bagel Face opened way back in 2010. The fact is that while bagels are versatile, satisfying and almost universally loved, they are a very labor-intensive product to make. That's one reason why Proper Bagel, which opened in January on Belmont Boulevard, is such a big deal.
Proper Bagel is the carefully cultivated dream of the Speranza family: Carmine and Marcy, their adult daughter Heather, and Heather's husband Alex España. The elder Speranzas have been in the bagel business for decades, starting on Long Island in the '70s and later moving to South Florida. Heather, meanwhile, is a veteran of the fashion industry in Los Angeles, where she and Alex lived for years. (They originally met when they both worked for Betsey Johnson in New York.) When they all decided to open a bagel shop as a family, both couples relocated to Nashville.
Alex had discovered Nashville's thriving creative and culinary scene while working a music industry job doing LCD walls for touring acts like KISS and Mötley Crüe, and the whole family visited and endorsed the city.
The shop they opened represents one of the loveliest transformations I've seen in Nashville's eye-popping construction boom. An old bungalow-turned-storefront (formerly Salon Stephen) has been reinvented as a chic but welcoming cafe, with a clean and striking black-and-white tile decor. A new kitchen built onto the back is where all the bagel business takes place (making the dough, proofing it, shaping the bagels, boiling and baking them).
While the walls and floor are stylishly restrained in monochrome, the gleaming glass display counter holds a riot of colorful foods: lox, nova, sable and other smoked fish, a dozen different cream-cheese spreads studded with bright ingredients, sandwich-stuffers like chicken salad and egg salad, and much more. Then there's a lineup of sweets, including traditional options like rugelach, black-and-white cookies and rainbow marzipan, plus newfangled treats like a killer baked doughnut with lemon icing.
And the bounty doesn't stop there. The menu gives pride of place to the bagels, smoked fish and cream cheese, but there's also an array of house-made deli meats like smoked turkey, roast beef and sliced brisket. Two chefs joined the team to help craft the large, inventive menu: Joshua Simpson for savory items, and Heidi Kohnhorst for pastries.
On several visits, I have been tremendously pleased by everything I've eaten. For me, the pinnacle of bagel achievement has always been the pumpernickel bagel; its savory depth of rye flavor really rules the category. But a lot of the corporate bagel purveyors don't even bother with making pumpernickel. (Maybe it's considered too weird, with that four-syllable name.) Anyhow, that's why I was thrilled on my first visit to Proper Bagel back in January, when I spotted pumpernickel in two varieties — regular pump and "Russian pumpernickel," which has raisins.
Every day there's about a dozen flavors in the bagel case; varieties rotate, so while pumpernickel remains, the Russian pumpernickel is currently off the menu. But something new and exciting was just added: sourdough bagels. Generally, the bagel selection will always include some familiar favorites like sesame, onion and "everything," but you'll also see more unusual options like spinach and honey-sunflower.
Then there's the traditional onion bialy: It's baked instead of being boiled, and instead of a hole, there's a central dent filled with tangy onions and poppy seeds. A bialy is less doughy than a bagel but can be sliced and makes a great sandwich component.
The bagels themselves seem to live up to their "proper" hype; the interior is moist and chewy, while the exterior has a perfectly tender bite. Some bagel aficionados might argue for a crunchier crust, but I find the texture to be perfectly balanced.
The cream-cheese spreads are exceptional, as well. I tend to go for the scallion or dill-pickle-filled versions, but you can get other traditional flavors like walnut-raisin, or more exotic varieties like lavender-honey or salted caramel.
To be frank, I'm a little hung up on ordering a single basic item: the Nova sandwich, which consists of smoked Nova Scotia salmon (flown in from Brooklyn's 70-year-old Acme Smoked Fish, but hand-sliced in house by Marcy), served with scallion cream cheese, fresh onion, tomato and capers. I order it on pumpernickel, of course. The salmon is good quality, moist and not overly fishy, and it's just a wonderfully balanced, classic combination.
But it's worth branching out: The menu is surprisingly large for such a compact shop. It features bagels, deli sandwiches, breakfast sandwiches and also "toasts" — each one of these open-faced sandwiches starts with a slice of Kohnhorst's fresh challah. I've particularly enjoyed the tuna-melt toast, which offers sprightly, fresh-tasting tuna salad topped with melted Muenster, and also the warm-brisket bagel sandwich, which gives brisket and provolone a zippy South American twist in the form of chimichurri sauce. The excellent vegan split-pea soup makes a good sandwich or bagel accompaniment, or light lunch on its own.
As for beverages, there's coffee from Nashville's Barista Parlor, and a case of soft drinks, including New York deli favorite Dr. Brown's (even the elusive Cel-Ray, which is an old-timey celery soda), Mexican Cokes and gourmet Spindrift seltzers.
If you go, it helps to know how the ordering line works. Grab a menu to peruse, walk along the display case (they're happy to give you a sample of anything that catches your eye), then step up to two iPad stations where staff will take your order. The bagels reside in a case just past those stations, so you'll have to glance ahead to determine which bagel varieties are available that day. Then head to your table with a number, and a server will bring your food to you. The bright and airy dining room and small patio are pleasant places to eat, or you can take your food to go.
In the early days of operation, the system was a bit slow — I don't think the team was prepared for how popular the joint would immediately be. But in the months since opening, the friendly staff has really cranked up the effort to streamline the process.
Even though I've visited several times, I'm still exploring the menu's amazing variety. Two different tuna salads, at least three versions of chicken salad. Did I mention the list of breakfast specialties? That includes oatmeal with maple cream, whiskey-barrel aged honey and house-made walnut granola. It's rare that I feel so dazzled by menu options.
Perhaps it's no surprise that neighbors and college students from nearby Belmont and Vanderbilt have adopted Proper Bagel as a favorite hangout. But it's also drawing folks from East Nashville and beyond. (Parking in the Belmont neighborhood is a bit sticky, but there are several spaces behind Proper Bagel that most people don't know about.)
Proper Bagel operates 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, and 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekends. The restaurant's website is under construction, but will expand in the next week or two as they roll out catering, so people can have a proper Proper Bagel party at home.
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