Young Malibu woman gets rave reviews for her unusual bagels

By JUDY ABEL

Ayoung woman from Malibu is taking her bite of the Big Apple with the launch of a successful business in New York City. It was a bold move on the part of Malibu native Sakura Smith to start a bagel business in arguably THE bagel capital of the world. But in the city that appreciates, and some might even say worships, the doughy treats, Smith is creating a buzz with her unique take on bagels.

The 25-year-old, who grew up in Corral Canyon and attended Malibu schools, also attended a Japanese preschool and continued studying her heritage and Japanese language every Saturday in West Los Angeles until her teenage years. The Smith family spent every summer in Japan to stay with her maternal grandparents and extended family.

The 2016 Malibu High School graduate, who always cooked for friends, then moved to New York to study at Parsons School of Design. It was the COVID-19 pandemic that brought her back to Malibu in 2020. It was then that Smith and her mother, Noriko, started baking using a