As a city of cherished food traditions, Baltimore can be slow to adopt out-of-town staples. Just look at bagels. As late as 1959, The Baltimore Sun dismissed them as “hard rolls with a hole in the middle. Someone once described them as doughnuts dipped in concrete.”

Happily, the local bagel scene has picked up speed in recent years, reflecting both a boom in Baltimore’s bakery offerings and the free-flowing creativity of its workers. Sure, people still sometimes complain about the challenges of finding a good bagel in Charm City. “Baltimore bagels honestly suck,” wrote one Dish newsletter reader, who lives locally but works in New York.

The truth is, though, there are plenty of places to find a decent bagel — and even an incredible one — if you know where to look.

Ovenbird Bakery

• Multiple locations

The perfect bagel does exist. It’s at Ovenbird Bakery, which has locations in Little Italy, Highlandtown and Hampden. Is it a New York-style bagel? Montreal? Neither, according to owner Keiller Kyle, who came up with the recipe for Ovenbird’s sourdough bagels together with former employee Shadee Holden. “I think Baltimore maybe gets to claim it as its own,“ Kyle said.

While New York bagels are typically boiled with malt barley syrup, Kyle and Holden opted to use honey instead, an addition that lends Ovenbird’s bagels their rich, pretzel-like hue. Diners can choose from an array of unconventional house-made seasoning blends, including spicy fennel or za’atar. ”Our everything bagel has literally everything on the shelf," Kyle said, including flax and quinoa as well as the more traditional onion and garlic.

Good Boy Bagels

• 834 S. Conkling St.

Canton’s bagel scene got a major boost last May when Good Boy Bagels opened its doors. The dog-themed shop offers all the classic bagels you’d expect, many with canine names like “Puptown Girl,” which features house-made cream cheese and smoked salmon from Annapolis’ Chesapeake Smokehouse. Before opening the cafe, owners Benjamin Sawyer and Lauren Kistner, both New Jersey natives, used to stockpile bagels for their freezer whenever they went back home. “We don’t have to do that anymore, which is really nice,” Kistner said.

At Good Boy Bagels, she and Sawyer, a former fine-dining chef and butcher, capture the signature elements of a Jersey bagel: a crunchy exterior with a chewier interior that puts up a fight when you take a bite. The shop is a round-the-clock operation, with staff hand-rolling bagels throughout the day to proof overnight. The only machine involved is a pizza oven, which Kistner says is the New Jersey way. A word of advice? You don’t get it toasted. The bagels are made from scratch and come fresh out of the oven.

Über Bagels & Deli

• Multiple locations

Long Island transplant John Nocher always complained he could never find a decent bagel in Maryland, said his wife, Shawn. One day, he decided to do something about it. John attended a bagel-making school in New Jersey hoping to recreate the perfect New York-style item. Fifteen years ago, the Nochers opened the first branch of Über Bagels & Deli in Ocean City, Maryland, which quickly became a local favorite with lines stretching out the door. Today, the shop has locations in Severna Park and Timonium, and recently added a branch in Columbia.

All the bagels are made fresh at each location daily, “the old-fashioned, New York way,” Shawn said. Customer favorites include the rosemary sea salt as well as the asiago. In addition to traditional toppings like lox and cream cheese, customers can order Maryland-influenced dishes like “Harry’s crabby patty,” served with crab spread on an Old Bay bagel.

THB Bagelry & Deli

• Multiple locations

Bona Sforza, an Italian-born woman who later became queen of Poland, sometimes gets credit for bringing the bagel to the Central European country. In Baltimore, Italians get credit for providing one of the area’s most reliable outposts for decent bagels.

THB Bagelry & Deli, previously known as Towson Hot Bagels, has been owned by the Scotto family since 2008. “THB reminds us of our grandfather’s deli in Italy,” co-owner Tony Scotto told Baltimore magazine last year. “Bagel shops share a lot of similarities with Italian delis, like the sliced meat and vegetables and the freshly made bagels and bread. So, this feels a lot like home.” The company now has seven locations in the Baltimore area, complete with Maryland-centric specials like the crabby melt, which is topped with crab dip and cheese, or the crabby BLT.

Goldberg’s New York Bagels

• 1500 Reisterstown Road #211, Pikesville

Bring up bagels in Baltimore and you’re sure to invite some strong opinions, as I discovered after asking readers to share their thoughts on the topic. Goldberg’s, long considered the standard bearer of local bagels, has now become a polarizing name. Some love the place. One reader claimed that the spot’s “chewy morsels, in all varieties, stand shoulder to shoulder with any New York, Philly or LA bagel.” On the other end of the spectrum, another pronounced the Pikesville chain “is washed,” using slang that I had to Google to understand means “washed up.”

My own recent visit to the eatery yielded uneven findings, with a chewy but misshapen bagel smeared with cream cheese that had the funky aftertaste of roquefort. Online, the reviews run similarly hot and cold. While one customer called it the “best bagel place in at least all of Maryland,” several others reported surly staff and subpar quality. “Honestly, just go somewhere else,” wrote one. “The Einstein Bagels chain is better.”