St-Viateur Bagel

Myer Lewkowicz came out of Buchenwald and learned bagels at Hyman Seligman's bakery on St-Laurent, then he and his wife Emma set up a shop with Seligman on Saint-Viateur.2 That was 1957, at 263, and the shop still bakes to the recipe it opened with.1 2

Why go

The method is fixed and slow. Bagels are rolled by hand, boiled in water sweetened with honey, laid on a wooden board and pushed into a wood oven, then turned when they go golden and pulled at the right moment.1 An oven can do up to three dozen an hour, because a bagel takes twenty minutes and there is no way around that.1 Joe Morena was a fifteen-year-old delivery boy in the neighborhood when Lewkowicz told him to come and work for him.1 He became joint owner in 1974, learned Yiddish serving the shop's older Jewish customers, and after Lewkowicz died in 1994 he ran it with Marco Sblano.2 His sons Vincenzo, Nicolò and Roberto are in the business now.2

Order this / avoid

Order: a dozen, hot. The flagship is a bakery counter and take out only, open every day from 6am to midnight, so aim for a batch coming off the oven.3
Avoid: arriving with a New York bagel in mind. Montreal's are smaller, sweeter and have a bigger hole.1

What locals & experts say

Myer Lewkowicz, years later, to a high school class: At Buchenwald, all I dreamt of was a piece of bread.2
The shop, asked about the rivalry with Fairmount Bagel: The war over the quality between bagels was really created by the customers (laughs). The relations between Fairmount Bagels and us are very cordial, we both do our thing and respect each other.1
Élise Tastet, Tastet: St Viateur Bagel is one of the longest-running bagel shops in Montreal and is known around the world.1

Good to know

Which door: seven St-Viateur locations trade in and around the city, and two of them sit on Saint-Viateur Ouest. This entry is number 263, the 1957 original. The other is number 158, up the street in Mile End.3
Timing: every day, 6am to midnight. People still call this a 24-hour bakery and it no longer is, so skip the 3am plan.3
The room: it doubled in 1985 after a fire, and it was half this size before that.1
The old rule: in the early days people queued and were held to a dozen each.1

Verdict

should-visit — Myer Lewkowicz came out of Buchenwald, learned the trade at Hyman Seligman's bakery on St-Laurent, and in 1957 set up a shop on Saint-Viateur with his wife Emma and with Seligman. The method is the argument: hand-rolled, boiled in honey water, onto a wooden board and into a wood oven, turned when they go golden, up to three dozen an hour because a bagel needs twenty minutes and no oven can be hurried. Joe Morena walked in at fifteen as a delivery boy, became joint owner in 1974, and runs it today with his sons Vincenzo, Nicolò and Roberto. Élise Tastet calls it one of the longest-running bagel shops in Montreal, and the shop's own claim to be the longest running does not survive Fairmount, which opened up the road in 1919. Go for a dozen hot off the oven at a take-out counter that trades 6am to midnight, and go knowing it is one product done one way.