With their own roast meats and flourishes like sharp pimento cheese spread, Cutty’s has defined gourmet sandwiches for three years. Now kitchen manager Mary Ting Hyatt is adding the same excitement to breakfast at the Brookline spot. In August, Hyatt, a Clear Flour Bread alum, began making bagels. Unlike New York or Montreal versions, Hyatt’s dough is slow-fermented using a 30-year-old sourdough starter, and she forgoes a bagel-shaping machine in favor of her own hands. She shapes, boils, and bakes each one in what she refers to as her “Bagelsauras micro-bakery.” “I realized I could use more of an artisan bread approach,” says the baker. Her bagels are light but chewy, without the dense crumb typical of other rounds.
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Production is limited. Cutty’s bagels are available Fridays and Saturdays in five traditional varieties ($2.25 each) plus a pretzel bagel served with Dijon butter ($2.75 ). Co-owner Charles Kelsey has also implemented a house-cured lox to complement the chewy rounds. Buy lox on a bagel sandwich ($7.95) or open-faced, heaped with the fish ($10.95), cream cheese, pickled shallots, and crispy, fried capers. Cutty’s, 284 Washington St., Brookline Village, 617-505-1844, www.cuttyfoods.com.
CHRISTOPHER HUGHES