Carlos Perez is bringing great bagels to new spaces with his business Boil & Bake, which showcased in Los Angeles at BagelFest West 2026. Born and raised in O.C., he took his experience in food through his family to partner with his chef Luke Bramm, conjoining local love with Michelin training. By perfecting what they call a Californian bagel, they prove why their goods are worth the journey down south of LA.
BruinLife’s Emily Hsi sat down with Carlos Perez to get to the bottom of the bagel bag.
BruinLife: What’s your bagel order?
Carlos Perez: Everything bagel with cream cheese. Keep it classic, can’t go wrong.
BL: What inspired you to start a bagel business on the West Coast?
CP: I grew up in the bagel business. Since I was eight years old, my dad’s been a managing owner of a chain called Shirley’s Bagels in Orange County. When I graduated high school, I didn’t know what I wanted to do, so I was just working for him. It slowly grew on me. One day after 12 years, I wanted to try to open my own with my own twist.
BL: Who curates the bagels? How do you come up with ideas?
CP: The bagel itself is mine, but everything else is from Luke. I come from a mom and pop restaurant business. He comes from fine dining, so we try to combine both of these mindsets. I’ve only known him as long as we’ve been open, so we met just for this.
BL: How do you meet another chef like that?
CP: That’s going to be the community aspect. My friend, Chef Carlos, has a restaurant in Long Beach. He was going to be my original chef for this, but he got the opportunity to open his own restaurant. He didn’t want to leave me hanging, and he told me, “I have somebody for you to meet that will be a good fit for you.” I love being part of the community, and I’m friends with a lot of local chefs in our area who all help each other out. That’s what I believe in, from the way that I treat my food to the way I treat my staff. Stay true to yourself. Not everybody’s gonna like your stuff. I’m sure there’s plenty of people that come into my place and they’re like, oh, $20 salmon bagel, that’s stupid. If you don’t like it, like no hard feelings. There’s plenty of other restaurants. And that’s why I don’t need to have a bunch of locations.
BL: Amid the Bagel Renaissance of Southern California, what makes your business stand out?
CP: I’ve been told that we have a really cool merch game. We have our graphic designer, Lucio Gomez, and he does incredible work. Besides that, I think we highlight making everything in-house, down to our butter. We cure our own lox and we even make our own sausage; we grind our own meat and everything. We try to make everything ourselves. For me, not just in bagels, but also in restaurants, I don’t want to sell you something that you can just go to the grocery store and buy. I want to give you something that you can only get at my restaurant.
BL: Your website says that you source ingredients from all over the west coast. What influences these decisions and why is this process important to you?
CP: For me, it’s ethics and environment. I’d rather have a local tomato from the area than an organic tomato from thousands of miles away. I think it’s more damaging to get that organic tomato over something that’s fresh. Plus, you’re supporting your local economy. So aside from the food part, it’s important to consider the economy and the ethical part of the process.
BL: How did you decide which bagels best represent your business at BagelFest?
CP: I wanted to highlight two things: number one, our house-cured lox, which is something we’re known for. A lot of businesses don’t get to do house-cured lox, and that’s something people come to us for. And then there’s our house-cultured butter. Butter and salt is so simple, and yet I think people oversee that, and it’s delicious. We culture our butter for three days, and we churn it in house.
BL: I see that you are working on a pop-up restaurant concept called Ed & Junes. Can you tell me more about that?
CP: Boil & Bake is a passion project. It’s in Costa Mesa, and I don’t intend on ever opening it anywhere else. I want it to be something where when you go to a city, and you say, “I love this city, and this is my local little bakery.” That’s what I want it to be; I don’t need it to be everywhere. Me and my chef have Ed & June’s, which is a dinner concept, non-bagel related. We’re gonna try to open a few more restaurants with the same philosophy: local and Californian. I love bagels. That’s where I came from, so that was the perfect first concept for me, but for me, it’s that philosophy of a restaurant more than the bagel itself.
