It took six months of testing for the team behind Redfern’s George St Deli to perfect its bagels – including multiple research trips to New York. The resulting bagel is crispy on the outside, fluffy in the middle, and packed with premium ingredients.

Get started with the Lox Classic. It’s crowded with smoked trout cured by Stephen Hodge (founder of Fish Face ), house-made cream cheese, onion, capers and tomato, and served with house-made potato crisps and pickles. It’s an ideal foil to the house-made lemonade.

Other classics on the menu include the pastrami, and the egg-and-potato salad. Come dessert, there’s an array of sweet bagels, as well as giant, chewy house-made cookies and babka.

New York wasn’t only the inspiration for the bagels, but also for George St Deli’s retro look and feel. It’s decked out with white tiles, black seating and boxes of geraniums, and is soundtracked by Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald and Nat King Cole.

In collaborating on the design with Studio P and Sheeth, owners Bernadette Sheppard and Anna Berlyn drew on family memories of visiting owner Sheppard’s mother, Colleen, who lived in New York.