838: How Apollo Bagels Took Over NYC… and Tokyo with Joey Scalabrino

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Joey Scalabrino (1:08)

For me, I just wanted to not look like a bagel shop. We didn't have so many cream cheeses, so I didn't need that fridge up in the front. I want to look like just like some bakery eatery that just happened to only sell bagels.

And then that's evolved over time since the first one, and always playing around with something new with the interior.

Aliza Abarbanel (1:30)

This is TASTE. I'm your host, Aliza Abarbanel.

Joey Scalabrino is the co-founder of Apollo Bagels, a new school bagel shop rooted in old world techniques with nine locations across New York City and Jersey. He started making bagels in the kitchen at Leo, the Williamsburg Sourdough Pizza restaurant, and built Apollo through thoughtful pop-ups, design, and collabs. Today on the show, we talk about building up Apollo Bagels, its recent mega-popular pop-up with Dean & DeLuca in Tokyo, and its brand new bagel chips. At the top of the show, Matt and I talk about some of the fall cookbooks catching our eye.

Matt Rodbard (2:11)

Aliza, we are back. How are you doing?

Aliza Abarbanel (2:12)

I'm doing well, Matt. How are you?

Matt Rodbard (2:14)

I'm doing great. We are in the midst of the fall cookbook season, and I wanted to take this time to talk about some books that we're looking forward to. These are not out yet.

I think the preface is that we haven't seen these books, like at least in their physical form. I've seen a couple of mine in PDF form. I don't want to take away from the actual bookmaking, like the trim, the paper quality. All that really goes into assessment of these cookbooks, and I haven't physically held all these books. So, that's like the preface. But it's such a cool season right now.

Aliza Abarbanel (2:50)

Yeah, there are a lot of things to be excited about, and I'm looking forward to cooking from all of these books and many more that we're not discussing.

Matt Rodbard (2:57)

Absolutely. We have a really full lineup of conversations this fall with so many authors from around the world of cookbooks, and we'll be dropping those all fall into December, and so many cool authors. Okay, the first one is The Kitchen I Came Home To from Sarah Bradley with Emily Timberlake, my old colleague here at Crown. That's out September 29th. This book really speaks to me. It's from Bradley who was a Top Chef runner-up twice, Top Chef Kentucky and Top Chef World All-Stars, and a Chopped Grand Champion, so big TV chef. I'd known the name Sarah Bradley, but I didn't really know her story until I checked out this book, and it's a really interesting approach. I mean, she's from Paducah, Kentucky, which as somebody who grew up in Kalamazoo, Michigan, I grew up in a version of that city that, yes, there is a Paducah, Kentucky, yes, there is a Kalamazoo, Michigan. Respect. It's more of a Midwestern book than anything. It's not a Southern book, and I think the thread here is that Sarah is sharing her Jewish traditions, but also the Appalachian traditions, Midwestern traditions in some ways.

She says it's not the Midwest, not the South, but the middle of everywhere, is how she describes Paducah, and I think that's well said. But I love it. She's a chef at Freight House in her hometown, and really the recipes jumped out on the page, like a couple of them that come to mind, the beer cheese with crudite, yes, please, there's a pepperoni dip. There's a cornbread salad with knot ranch, which she's describing as a Midwestern taco salad, which I think is really, really fun, and there's a honey cuckoo recipe that has a little bit of a twist. And then there's this pimento cheese waffle, that beautiful photography there, and cool idea, like yes, more pimento than waffle, please.