Bagels, scooped: Inside the new Slice & Schmear shop in South Philly

Aakash Patel selected a shiny bagel, laid it on the cutting board, and targeted his knife — not slicing at the equator, but closer to the Tropic of Capricorn. After cutting through, he yanked the innards out from the bagel’s thicker side, packed the void with cream cheese (“schmear,” in bagel-ese), then popped the thinner side on top.

There it was: a scooped bagel sandwich, $4.50.

This is what people lost their collective minds over last month, after hearing that Patel planned to offer scooped bagels at Slice & Schmear, the new bagel shop that replaces the beloved Korshak Bagels. It opened Friday at 10th and Morris Streets.

To scoop or not to scoop was previously a controversy in New York, after an Angeleno walked into a bagel shop, ordered a scooped bagel, then faced withering opprobrium. Apparently an L.A. thing, scooping is the path to enlightenment or, at least, a crunchier bagel. Southern Philly, however, is not Southern Cali. The notion of a scooped-bagel option sent locals to social media to rant; one commenter branded them as “perverse.”

Even Slice & Schmear’s manager, James Morales, isn’t wild about the practice. “As a baker,” he said, “scooping a bagel rips a piece of my heart out.”

Scooping sandwiches has been a long-standing practice among carbophobes. At the Northeast Philadelphia deli where I worked in the ’70s, customers ordered their scooped hoagies, sometimes with extra cheese and extra oil, and, in a sugar-free finish, a Tab to drink.

Patel had a career in finance before he quit the corporate world to open Bar1010, a pizzeria in Northern Liberties, last year.

Patel, 30, was raised in Galloway Township, N.J., the son of poker dealers in nearby Atlantic City. (“There’s no such thing as a poker face in front of them,” he said.)

Although the “trendy L.A.” tie-in is one reason he is offering scooped bagels, “mostly it’s just because my parents used to work and they wouldn’t be there to help me make breakfast.”

In a pinch, Bagel-fuls, Kraft’s old line of frozen cream cheese-filled bagels, became his easy breakfast. “I grew up on them,” Patel said. Trying a scooped bagel with cream cheese recently brought back happy middle-school memories. “It would be the same feeling as drinking a Capri-Sun after 10 years,” he said. “It’s like, ‘Wow, I remember this.’”

At Galloway High School, Patel bought a bagel for lunch, pumped in lots of Philadelphia cream cheese from the foil packets, and stuffed Flamin’ Hot Cheetos inside. “We’re going to put that on the menu eventually,” he said.

Patel said four varieties of square pizza, the “Slice” in the shop’s name, will be introduced in about month. He describes the pizza as a hybrid of a Sicilian, a grandma, and a Detroit.

Patel kept the shop much as it was, with the disco ball and LP turntable still in the mix. Korshak’s spinning wheel of bagel options, however, will be donated to a museum.

The shop’s previous owner, Philip Korshak, has stopped in from time to time, imparting tips. Korshak’s bagel recipe, a two-day process that earned his shop national acclaim, relies on a sourdough starter (nicknamed Helen Mirren) that began life 11 years ago, when he lived in Austin.

Patel has rolled his own bagel recipe: He uses a three-day process, starting with a biga (flour, water, yeast, malt) that sits in the fridge for 24 hours. On the second day, he mixes the biga with salt and additional flour and salt. On that same day, he rolls the dough and form the bagels, which proof for 24 hours in the fridge. On the third day, he boils the bagels with honey, then bakes them.

The outsides have a crispy, thin crust, almost like a laminated dough, with pillowy insides. Single bagels, depending on style, are $2.25 or $3, or $22 for a baker’s dozen. Sandwiches, sold by the half or whole, top out at $22 for one topped with wild Alaskan salmon roe, dill, red onion, and cream cheese.

Speaking of the insides: Patel plans to collect the scooped innards, bake them on a sheet with olive oil, and package them in containers that will be sold in the shop as breadcrumbs, with proceeds donated to charity. He said he would donate proceeds from the sales of day-old bagels, as well.