Mother Dough Bagels is new to Santa Barbara, situated in a little cottage painted pistachio green and light pink, with a surprisingly spacious interior allowing for dallying whilst you eat. They’ve gone to great lengths to arrange the side yard with roses, nice tables at which to sit, and a general sense of sunshine and careful curation. The open floor plan inside reveals the kitchen, so you can be assured these babies are made in-house. Although they were initially open only three days a week, they’ve recently expanded to Wednesday-Sunday. And on a fine Friday morning I stopped by to explore and see what exactly a sourdough bagel tastes like.

My first impression when I entered was: Foodies own this business. Rather than twenty kinds of bagels, they have about five, and they are arranged on the counter like offerings at a patisserie, with one flavor being quite unusual (hint, it’s in the title of the blog). The same is true of their coffee. Not too many options, but one or two that are quirky and worth exploring, like the blueberry latte.  

 I have to say, the thrill of bagels has not diminished over the years. There is something so indulgent about gleaming rows of plump beauties just waiting your choice of cream cheese. They have what you might expect (sea salt, everything, poppy seed, and sesame), but they have the above-mentioned furikake bagel on rotation. And on this particular day they had a special: rosemary bagels. I went for rosemary with sea salt cream cheese, and oh my word, it was gorgeous. The glorious scent of rosemary in a chewy bagel, crispy on the outside and soft on the inside, with cream cheese that was rich and decadent on the tongue but also properly aerated, so that it wasn’t leaden. I will be coming back to Mother Dough in hopes that the rosemary bagel makes it into the permanent roster.

I brought a bag of bagels home, along with all of their choices of cream cheese and continued to nibble and taste test throughout the day. How does a sourdough bagel, which these all are, taste different than a regular bagel? The ingredients are simple: organic flour, kosher sea salt, organic barley malt syrup, organic extra virgin olive oil, and water. Mother Dough ferments their dough for 48 hours, then hand-rolls, boils, and bakes them. And while the bitey tang of a piece of sourdough bread is not what you’ll find here, there is a richness to the flavor that far surpasses that of a regular bagel. The care that goes into making and baking these bagels is superb.

The toppings range from a mild honey butter and sea salt cream cheese to the unusual tobiko cream cheese and gochujang cream cheese. The garlic herb cream cheese was reminiscent of Boursin cheese and was num-num-num on their everything bagel.  The gochujang cream cheese, made with fermented red chili paste from Korea, had a mellow spiciness to it, and I thought it paired great with the sesame bagel.  But perhaps the most outrageous cream cheese they offer is the tobiko cream cheese, which features fish roe from Japanese cuisine. The little fish eggs burst when you chew them, like boba bubbles, but with a salty flavor. If you like a salty, fishy burst in with bites of cream cheese, this is the adventure for you. And which kind of bagel? It has to be the furikake bagel.

What in the world is a furikake sourdough bagel? I’ve never seen one before. It’s a sourdough bagel coated in a spice blend called “furikake,” which means “sprinkles” in Japanese. If you’ve had sushi or onigiri you will likely have had furikake sprinkled on top. What mad genius decided this belonged on a bagel is not going for the conservative eater but rather the adventurer. My husband sniffed the furikake bagel, resplendent in green shards of seaweed and pronounced it to be “fish bagel.” There is, in fact, no actual fish in this bagel, but seaweed, sesame, sugar, and sea salt caking the outside. Biting into it is a little reminiscent of biting into onigiri. I was quickly enmeshed in a conundrum: Does seaweed belong on a bagel? Perhaps a bagel with a schmear of tobiko cream cheese? Personally, I’m glad for any chef who is unafraid to follow what might seem like slightly daft flavor combinations; because that is where the genius happens.

You can visit them here.