Montréal - Mile End: St. Viateur Bagel Shop
St. Viateur Bagel Shop, at 263 St. Viateur Ouest, was opened in 1957 by Myer Lewkowicz. Current owner, Joe Morena, with over 45 years of experience in the bagel business, oversees a family business that has grown to include 4 bakeries and 2 Bagel Cafés in Montreal. The landmark bagel shop operates 24/7 and sells over 1,000 dozen bagels a day, each and rolled and baked in a wood-burning oven.
The Montreal bagel, sometimes called a beigel, or in French a beguel, is a distinctive variety of the traditional bread product shaped by hand in a ring from yeasted wheat dough, which is first boiled for a short time in water and then baked. In contrast to the New York-style bagel, it is smaller, sweeter and denser, with a larger hole, and is always baked in a wood-fired oven. It contains malt, egg, and no salt and is boiled in honey-sweetened water before being baked in a wood-fired oven, whose irregular flames give it a dappled light-and-dark surface colour. There are two predominant varieties: black-seed (poppyseed), or white-seed (sesame seed).
Montreal bagels, like the New York bagel, were brought to North America by Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. One story claims the bagel was first baked in Montreal by Chaim (Hyman) Seligman, who sold his bagels on the Main from the back of a horse-drawn carriage. Seligman went in business with two men, Myer Lewkowicz and Jack Shlafman. Seligman and Lewkowicz founded St-Viateur Shop; Shlafman went on to found Fairmount Bagel. Fairmount Bagel’s sign pays homage to Seligman’s practice of stringing bagels together for sale by the dozen.
For a different version, see the <a href="Fairmont's story
Montréal - Mile End: St. Viateur Bagel Shop
St. Viateur Bagel Shop, at 263 St. Viateur Ouest, was opened in 1957 by Myer Lewkowicz. Current owner, Joe Morena, with over 45 years of experience in the bagel business, oversees a family business that has grown to include 4 bakeries and 2 Bagel Cafés in Montreal. The landmark bagel shop operates 24/7 and sells over 1,000 dozen bagels a day, each and rolled and baked in a wood-burning oven.
The Montreal bagel, sometimes called a beigel, or in French a beguel, is a distinctive variety of the traditional bread product shaped by hand in a ring from yeasted wheat dough, which is first boiled for a short time in water and then baked. In contrast to the New York-style bagel, it is smaller, sweeter and denser, with a larger hole, and is always baked in a wood-fired oven. It contains malt, egg, and no salt and is boiled in honey-sweetened water before being baked in a wood-fired oven, whose irregular flames give it a dappled light-and-dark surface colour. There are two predominant varieties: black-seed (poppyseed), or white-seed (sesame seed).
Montreal bagels, like the New York bagel, were brought to North America by Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. One story claims the bagel was first baked in Montreal by Chaim (Hyman) Seligman, who sold his bagels on the Main from the back of a horse-drawn carriage. Seligman went in business with two men, Myer Lewkowicz and Jack Shlafman. Seligman and Lewkowicz founded St-Viateur Shop; Shlafman went on to found Fairmount Bagel. Fairmount Bagel’s sign pays homage to Seligman’s practice of stringing bagels together for sale by the dozen.
For a different version, see the <a href="Fairmont's story