Introduction:
I am not a food critic, although I used to do food reaction videos on YouTube sometimes, so maybe that counts? Eh, probably not. But I love food and love hearing people talk about food. That’s why I’m such a fan of Anthony Bourdain’s writing and his various shows, discussing food from all over the world. When I travel, I like to eat my way through wherever I happen to be. Sometimes it’s as simple as my first trip to Boston, where my goal was to have my first lobster. (If you’re curious, I felt it was just okay and still prefer crab in the taste department) Other times, I have a specific yearslong quest, like my fast food tour of San Diego to see In-N-Out, Jack in the Box and Del Taco, something I’d dreamed of ever since my cousin and I first joked about attending San Diego Comic Con for our 30th birthdays when we were teenagers. My trip to Montreal however, was not inspired by a desire for the local cuisine of our neighbors to the north, it was just an inside joke with my girlfriend about taking a quick weekend trip to Montreal to get away from the hustle and bustle of our busy daily lives, we had always joked about taking the train up, but we elected to fly so that we could make the most of the short time we had. But that doesn’t mean we didn’t have an extensive itinerary of food to try and places to see, some inspired by the various episodes of Anthony Bourdain’s shows that feature the city and some that we’d heard about from other sources. And of course, we need to try poutine! So, as they say in Montreal, viens avec moi as I tell you about all the culinary adventures I had!
Honorable Mention: LaGuardia Airport Shake Shack Chicken Nuggets:
Before the trip started, our flight was delayed by two hours, which meant that we each got a $15 voucher to be used at the airport, and we used it for Shake Shack because it was the only place that seemed like real food. My girlfriend got a chicken sandwich and I got the chicken nuggets, which I’ve always been curious about but never got because most times I’m at a Shake Shack, I think it would be a waste to not get a burger, given that it’s their main thing. It was exactly what we needed at that time, and we only spent like $3 in real money on the food, so it was a good value. I also paid full price for a beer because I’ve also always been curious about the Shakemeister Ale, and it was… fine. Anyway, onto the stuff we actually ate in Montreal!
Day 1:
As a New Yorker, I was surprised to discover that there’s a pretty sizable Jewish population up in Montreal. There were parts where I walked around and it felt like walking around the neighborhood where I grew up outside of signs being in French. So doing a Jewish food tour made sense, especially since it was an opportunity to see classic Jewish deli and bakery staples in a new environment. But it was also a history lesson, which was quite fascinating. The tour itself was small, just my girlfriend and I, another couple and the tour guide, but it was a fun walk around the Mile End section of Montreal and we learned a lot. Plus, it helped us with certain places that otherwise have a long line that we wouldn’t have wanted to wait in, but we still got to sample because of the tour.
Beyond the Bagel Food Tour:
The history of Jewish food in Montreal is very interesting, as there were a few major migrations both before and after the Holocaust, and we learned about their history interspersed with the food they brought to Montreal, which are all staples of any good Jewish deli or bakery.
Saint-Viateur
The battle of the bagels is obviously a large aspect of this food journey, as a native New Yorker, bagels are sacrosanct to some. The types of bagels, what toppings or schmears you use, everyone has an opinion. I actually already sampled a Montreal bagel at last year’s Bagelfest event at CitiField, from this very establishment, but in the face of all of the different bagels and toppings across that whole day, it was hardly a fair sampling of an authentic Montreal bagel. Thinner, doughier and sweeter, and boiled in honey water, Montreal bagels are not vehicles for sandwiches like New York bagels are. My usual bagel order is a BLT with cheddar cheese on an onion bagel, and that works. Montreal bagels are more like a croissant, in that they are meant to be eaten on their own, perhaps dipped in butter or cream cheese or eaten open-faced. Not that you can’t do that with a New York bagel, but that they are more versatile in what you can top them with. Saint-Viateur is a really good bagel, and I’ll spoil it here, the best bagel that we ate that day. The history of bagels in Montreal is also really interesting, but perhaps too large a scope for this particular piece. But there are three major players, and one of them is Myer Lewkowicz of Saint-Viateur and the other is the founder of Fairmount Bagels, which I’ll get to a bit later in the day.
Chez Greenberg
Another family affair, Chez Greenberg was started by Jake Greenberg, whose family previously ran a hotel and a tuxedo shop, before he revived an old family restaurant, Zaidies, as a smoked meat business, which blossomed into Chez Greenberg, a cafe that serves coffee and all sorts of sandwiches, snacks and other treats, which is partnered with a hydroponics business in the hopes of producing their own sustainable farming for the cafe. On the recommendation of our tour guide, I ordered a coffee from them which was pretty good. For the food tour, we were there to sample their knish, and while it wasn’t a yellow brick like I’d expect of a Brooklyn knish, it was still very tasty and well-seasoned. The place was charming and friendly, and in deference to their Jewish roots, sold two Lactaids for $3.00 at the counter for their digestively-challenged customers, which is a nice touch. It reminded me of an old Brooklyn kosher deli that I used to go to with my family when I was a kid that sadly closed down a few years ago, Jay and Lloyd’s but updated the modern-era.
Fairmount Bagel
And now to our next bagel, Fairmount, started by Isadore Shlafman and passed to his son Jack and then to his son Irwin. Next door to a $5.00 gnocchi place that a lot of people in the neighborhood seemed to be going for, Fairmount was a decent bagel, but I liked Saint-Viateur more, although they were both really good fresh out of the oven and dipped in cream cheese.
Beauty’s
Beauty’s is a classic Jewish lunch counter named for the original owner’s bowling moniker. Burgers, soups, and omelettes (particularly their Mish-Mash, which contains hot dogs and salami), but we only got to sample their Challah Dog, which is, as the name implies, a hot dog wrapped in challah bread, which was absolutely divine. It’s a hot dog wrapped in challah bread, how could it not be?
Hof Kelsten
Jeff Finkelstein aka Hof Kelsten (made from the letters of his last name and a nickname he got living in Spain), traveled around the world working in restaurants like Anthony Bourdain, but came back home to Montreal to make bread, and important for the purposes of the tour, babka. While that was the main focus of our stop, it was another coffee stop as well, although I didn’t partake, they served Parlor Coffee, which is also the offering at another Jewish fusion bakery that I enjoy back in NYC, Elbow Bread which was a fun surprise. The babka was really good and very chocolatey. My girlfriend also picked up some extra pastries but we didn’t end up eating them until breakfast the next morning, so we’ll pick up that plot thread when we get there, we’ve still got one stop on the Beyond the Bagel tour left.
Schwartz’s
Schwartz’s is basically Montreal’s answer to Katz’s Deli, right down to their signature being a pastrami on rye with mustard and a cherry cola, as opposed to Katz’s signature being a pastrami on rye with mustard and a Dr. Brown’s Black Cherry soda (or maybe that’s just my own signature, you make the call!) It’s also similar in the length of their line, to the extent that they have a special line just for take out orders, but because of the food tour, we didn’t have to wait in it. (Oddly enough I also didn’t have to wait in the line my first time at Katz’s because I got lucky and wandered by during a lull) A decent pastrami, although being the final item in the tour, we weren't really that hungry and ended up saving part of it for later.
Canadian McDonalds:
If you know me, then you know fast food was going to make an appearance in this piece somewhere. I can’t resist an international McDonald’s, and this one was no exception. The menu offerings weren’t overly different from the US menu, but they still have McWraps and I got a BLT Quarter Pounder along with poutine fries and some McPops, which were tiny filled donut-like sweets. My girlfriend got the Chicken Caesar McWrap, and it was all really good. The beef of the Quarter Pounder tasted different than I was used to, but still a good burger. The poutine fries were great, it’s a McDonald’s fry with gravy and cheese curds on it, pretty tough to screw up. The McWrap was good, and even though we got the Snack Wraps back, I still mourn their larger cousin. Not as much as I mourn the Mushroom & Swiss Angus Third Pounder, but that is yet another thread not within the scope of this piece. Washing it all down with a Fruitopia, it was a fun experience and pretty good for McD’s!
Iconoglace:
My girlfriend is an ice cream connoisseur so of course there had to be some of that during our trip. The place we went to was Iconoglace, a chain specializing in funky sundaes such as Unicorn Poop or the Killer Hurricane. We got their seasonal sundae which had homemade apple crumble, salted caramel, apple and currant jelly and pecan crumble. It was okay, but melted really quickly even though we ate it outside where it was pretty cold.
Overall, a spectacular and very filling first day in Montreal!
Day 2:
Our second day was more of a touristy, wander about day, but we still had some specific places we wanted to hit before we left, but it was mostly a day of impulse food touring, starting with:
Le Petit Dep - Depanneur Cafe
For breakfast, we stopped by a little cafe/souvenir shop and got coffees to go with our remaining pastries from Hof Kelsten. My girlfriend got a cappuccino and I got a regular drip coffee. They were both fine, but the place was cute and we picked up a few souvenirs while we were there. Then we headed off to sit by the water and eat our pastries.
Remaining Pastries From Hof Kelsten:
While at Hof Kelsten the day before, my girlfriend picked up a few baked goods from their bakery case. We had a plain croissant, un croissant aux amandes (a croissant with almonds), and feuilleté with seasonal fruit, which was basically like a fruit danish. I don’t remember what fruit it was, but they were all pretty decent for being a day old.
Maple Soda:
While trawling the tourist trap gift shops along Montreal’s Old Port area, I saw a lot of maple themed items. Maple sausages, maple syrup, maple beer, maple water, it was like if Bubba from Forrest Gump was obsessed with maple syrup instead of shrimp! But what I opted to try was maple soda, which was sweet, but not in the gross sugary way some soda can be, very smooth. Next time I go to Canada, though, I promise a full maple food tour of all the various things you can make maple.
Gibeau Orange Julep:
Gibeau Orange Julep is a giant orange orb where inside they serve all manner of fast food items. We got a good assortment of food to share, including a hamburger, fries, a Michigan dog, the famous Orange Julep of course, and poutine, our second of the trip. For fast food, it was really good, the burger was juicy, the poutine is probably my favorite of the three we had on the trip and the Michigan dog, which consists of a hot dog topped with chili, similar to the Plattsburgh dog served at Elbow during their Dog Days/Nights, was also really delicious. The Orange Julep was very tasty as well, and while I shared a medium cup with my girlfriend, people could walk out with gallons of the stuff dispensed from tubes and pipes behind the counter like in a sci-fi movie. If it wasn’t for the fact that I can’t transport large amounts of liquid on an airplane (at least without checking a bag), I probably would have, because it was the best orange drink I’ve had at a fast food chain since Hi-C Orange at McDonalds when I was a kid.
Tim Horton’s
And it wouldn’t be a trip to Canada without a trip to Tim Horton’s, although they do have a lot of them in America, particularly in NYC, so it wasn’t quite as special, but for me, it was a necessary pilgrimage. It was… fine. No better or worse than Dunkin and the Timbit was about the same as a munchkin. But now I can say that I’ve had it!
Bouillon Albert:
While Anthony Bourdain said that you don’t need to have French food in Montreal, we wanted to have a nice sit down dinner and originally wanted to go to L’Express, but we couldn’t get a table so we searched online for comparable alternatives, and came upon Bouillon Albert, and I’m so glad we did, because it was one of the best meals I’ve ever had in my life. We started off with bone marrow and escargot as the appetizers, I’d never had either and while the escargot basically just tasted like garlic butter, since that’s what it was in, the bone marrow was delicious, we ended up spreading it on our bread. For our mains, my girlfriend got the duck confit with roasted potatoes and I got black pudding with mashed potatoes, which were paired with a white and red wine respectively. The mashed potatoes were so good and the black pudding was the best I’ve ever had. The duck was very good as well, as were the potatoes. We also had ratatouille as well, which was also delicious. For dessert, we each had a coffee and profiteroles with chocolate sauce, which were pretty good and their house made vanilla was really good!
Day 3:
Our last day has just a few final stops on our way to the airport for our flight. After breakfast at our hotel, of which the only notable event was a third Montreal bagel seemingly from a different place than either Saint-Viateur or Fairmount that was just okay, we headed back out into the city to hit some places we’d missed on the previous days. First up was a place that we’d have been taken to on the food tour, if the place wasn’t closed on Sundays and Mondays.
Wilensky’s:
Wilensky’s is a super old school spot with a special that consists of fried bologna and fried beef salami on a toasted bun with mustard. For what it was, it was homey and comforting. We ended up using the last of our Canadian cash, since they don’t take card payments.
Cafe Olimpico:
This place we went to because my girlfriend had heard of it and wanted to try their Caffe crema, like a coffee but soft serve, as it was something she’d enjoyed when living in Italy. Surprisingly, I thought it was better than the actual ice cream we had at Iconoglace.
Chez Claudette:
Our final food stop was to Chez Claudette for our final poutine of the trip. It was pretty good, even if I think Gibeau did it slightly better. The place had legit hole-in-the-wall vibes and seemed really old school. We also got two hot dogs, one steamed and one grilled, referring to the buns. The hot dogs were decent, though!
Airport Snacks:
Additionally, on our way to the airport, my girlfriend and I both chugged a bottle of maple water that had a very unique taste. Not bad but just weird to me. I also picked up a Mars bar and a Coffee Crisp on our travels and ate them while waiting for our slightly less delayed flight home. I liked them both, although I think I like the Coffee Crisp a little more.
And thus ends our food tour of Montreal, an overall delightful experience and a lot of standouts in the bunch. My favorite stop was probably Bouillon Albert, the classic French fare (which was also super affordable even discounting the USD to CAD conversion) filled our stomachs and the vibe of the restaurant was super low key, places like that can sometimes be loud or obnoxious but we had a great time. But the entire trip was a highlight and as my first trip out of the country, I think Montreal had a lot of great food for me to sample. Next time, I wanna cross an ocean though!
If you’ve been to Montreal, let me know if there were any spots we missed, or if you’ve been to the same places and had different experiences, and I’ll talk to you all next time!