Ethel’s Bagels launches delivery service in Petaluma, Marin, San Francisco

When chef Nicolas Abrams was furloughed during a pandemic, he baked the best of it. Just 10 weeks later, he’s delivery bagels and coffee beans all over the North Bay.|

In the doughy version of making lemonade out of lemons, Ethel’s Bagels recently launched when founder Nicolas Abrams became a furloughed chef in the midst of a pandemic. With more than 20 years of culinary experience, Nicolas decided to offer bagels, schmears and coffee, delivered directly to customers homes. The name and flavors pay homage to his grandmother Ethel.

Prior to the shelter-in-place, Nicolas explored the idea of opening a bagel shop in Petaluma, but had not found the right space. When the shutdown hit, he started baking and delivering bagels to friends and family. Within a few short weeks, among a tidal wave of rave reviews and expanding requests, Nicolas decided to bake it a business. That was just 10 weeks ago and he has already more than doubled his production and gone from delivering one day a week to now delivering three days a week throughout Sonoma, Marin, San Francisco and the East Bay.

Creating, presenting and eating delicious food is a family tradition for Nicolas. His early food memories including making salad dressing or setting the table for weekend feasts at his grandparent’s house in west Los Angeles. During high school Nicolas spent his summers working at Mama’s Fish House on the island of Maui. While attending college at University of California, Santa Barbara he interned in the kitchen legendary chef Michel Richard at Citronelle.

In the 1990s, following his college graduation, Nicolas moved to San Francisco and ended up cooking at both Lulu and Rubicon. The abundance of great local ingredients available to San Francisco chefs stuck in Nicolas’s memory and played a key role in his return to the area after traveling and working through Europe. Kitchen stints, including time at Alain Passard’s Arpege in Paris and Antoine Mosimann’s Mosimann’s in London, helped broaden Nicolas’s skills. While cooking in the French Alps he met his future wife and moved with her back to her native England where he accepted the position of executive chef at the Leaping Hare at Wyken Vineyards Estate in Suffolk.

In 2006, Nicolas and his family, which now included young son Oliver, were drawn back to the Bay Area because of the fresh seasonal produce. He started with a run at Mill Valley’s Buckeye Roadhouse, where he helped elevate the menu, before becoming executive chef at Hilltop 1892 in Novato. Next up was the role of culinary director at Rustic Bakery under the guidance of co-founder Carol Levalley. Prior to the pandemic layoffs, Nicolas was the head of the commissary kitchen for the Chalet Restaurant Group, which owns and operates the Beach Chalet (S.F.), Lake Chalet (Oakland), Honor Bar (Emeryville) and Gravity Bar (Mill Valley).

Throughout his culinary adventures, Nicolas never forgot his roots and the warm memories of Grandma Ethel’s cooking. Ethel was born in the early 1900s, met soon-to-be husband Lew Ritter in the Catskill Mountains, and lived and raised their family in Brooklyn until 1955, at which time they moved to Los Angeles. With deep New York roots, Nicolas’s grandparents introduced him to American Jewish cuisine, both through comfort foods at home, like fresh bagels and lox, and at the many Jewish delis in Los Angeles at the time.

“My hope with Ethel’s Bagels is to update my childhood breakfast table memories by incorporating Northern California products,” says Nicolas. To that end, Petaluma has been a perfect place to launch Ethel’s Bagels. Nicolas is already sourcing his flour from Petaluma’s Central Milling and offers smoked salmon from Anna’s Seafood. But it is the bagel that is at the core of his menu and is receiving high praise for their East Coast quality. “I did not set out to make a strictly East Coast or New York bagel,” continues Nicolas. “However, people seem to love them and are making that comparison.”

Ethel’s Bagels begin with a sourdough starter before mixing in organic flour, filtered water, American unrefined salt and malt powder. After weighing, hand rolling and shaping the bagels, they “rest” in the fridge for 30 hours. Ethel’s follows the traditional two-step cooking process, starting with a boil and then a bake. Nicolas revealed that one of the secrets to his bagels’ flavor is that along with organic malt syrup, he also adds Lagunitas beer to his water boil. After that, toppings are added before the bagels finish in the oven.

When we order our half-dozen last week, Ethel’s offered plain, salt, sesame, poppy seed, onion, black pepper and parmesan and the ever popular everything bagel. As promised, Nicolas has since added cinnamon raisin and pumpernickel to the stable.

“Eventually, we’d like to add more whole grain and sprouted grain choices,” Nicolas says.

All our bagels were delicious, with a nice balance of chewiness and bold flavors. Nicolas tells me that the everything, plain and salt are his best sellers, but it was the black pepper and parmesan that had me enamored. I was expecting it to simply be topped with cheese and pepper but upon slicing it open for toasting, found ribbons of parmesan throughout.

Additionally, we ordered several of Ethel’s house-made schmears, including the pickled shallot and herbs, and black garlic and sherry. For those that may have missed it, black garlic has been making guest appearances on restaurant menus of late, although I am told it is nothing new, dating back through Asian cuisines over the centuries. Contrary to popular belief, black garlic is not a separate family of garlic but is instead the result of careful garlic bulb aging, which ends up generating a product that is soft with a slightly burnt and sweet molasses flavor, making it a more graceful addition to dishes than raw or cooked garlic.

Other schmears include plain, chives and wild smoked lox. We were temped by the lox schmear but instead opted to indulge our cured fish cravings by adding one of the bagel topper “kits” to our order. We went with “The Classic” which included organic smoked salmon, organic shaved red onion, capers, and an organic lemon, plus plain schmear. The other kits are “California Spring” (sliced prosciutto, organic micro pea tendrils, two whole organic tomatoes, organic shaved red onion and plain schmear), “Avocado Delight” (smashed organic avocado, organic pickled shallots, organic microgreens, organic everything mix) and “Chef’s Childhood Favorite” (organic sliced olive and scallion mix, organic olive oil, smoked Maldon sea salt and plain schmear).

After adding schmears and toppings kits to his menu, Nicolas wanted to round out the menu with a breakfast beverage but delivering hot coffee would have been too great a challenge. He instead decided to fill a need and become a source of home delivered coffee beans. As luck would have it, an Instagram post of a puppy sniffing a bag of Kuksa Coffee Roasters coffee caught Nicolas’s wife’s eye. Started by two former Petaluma firefighters, Kuksa is also a newly formed local food purveyor so Nicolas thought they would be a good partner.

Although not a coffee drinker myself, others in the family are so I took a shot in the dark and ordered a bag of “Porch View” (and was told I did well). This dark roast, single origin, Colombian Palmera is full-bodied with hints of “cherry, brown sugar and citrus.” Another option is “Happy Trails,” which is a medium-dark roasted single origin bean from Costa Rica with hints of dark chocolate and orange. Kuksa also offers a decaffeinated “Unplug” Brazilian single origin dark roast with flavors of honey, nuts and chocolate.

Nicolas hopes to expand to local farmers markets and eventually open a brick and mortar shop but for now is happily busy with all the online orders.

Visit ethelsbagels.com for the full delivery schedule and online ordering menu.

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