Before reading about Montreal, I had no idea that the city is famous for its bagels. Unfortunately for Davia, we were not able to find a gluten-free bagel. Our hotel’s concierge was kind enough to contact several bagel shops and none of them had a gluten-free option. The concierge even relayed a detailed explanation from one of the shop owners who claimed it isn’t possible to make a Montreal-style bagel without gluten.
They said you’d need rocket science to make a proper gluten-free bagel.
– Our concierge
Nevertheless, we decided to head out into the falling snow and 20° F winds and find a Montreal bagel. At least Davia would be able to get to smell a fresh Montreal bagel. That’s good enough, right?
The streets were still quite snowy when we headed out, so we were moving slowly. We walked through Dorchester Square, and stopped to snap a photo of the Boer War Memorial, which we obviously were familiar with beforehand. There’s no way we just stumbled across it and Googled it later.
Our destination was 1000 de La Gauchetière, the tallest building in Montreal with 51 floors. The ground floor of the building had a food court and a number of stores to cater to its office dwellers. One of the semi-autonomous eateries is a bagel shop named La Fabrique de Bagel, which has a handful of locations across Montreal.
Once we made it to the building, we came across the food court which had a large ice skating rink in front of it. Much to my chagrin, Davia did not feel like doing her best Tonya Harding impression, so we did not end up going skating.
Eventually we found the bagel shop just beyond the area of the food court. As soon as you walk in, the smell of baking bread wafts toward you. Although I’m sure there are other, larger locations, there were several large machines behind the counter which gave me hope that we would get a fresh bagel that had been cooked on the premises.
The de facto “standard” bagel in Montreal is the sesame seed bagel, so we ordered one with cream cheese. They lightly toasted the bagel, slapped on the cream cheese, and we had the bagel within two minutes.
There are a bunch of articles online about the various differences between Montreal and New York-style bagels. The bagel we received from La Fabrique de Bagel had a bigger hole in the middle than the types of bagels to which we are accustomed. Apparently, these bagels are hand-made, whereas our bagels back home tend to have a very small hole and look as if they were made by machines. Some larger bagels will barely have a hole at all. Our Montreal bagel was also a tad softer and fluffier and had a crispier exterior than the typical New York-style bagel. I found the flavor of the sesame seeds to not be as overpowering as they are on New York-style bagels. I hate to say it, but I think I prefer the Montreal-style bagel.
The bagel looked and smelled very good.
– Davia
We trudged through the snow back to our hotel room at Le Mount Stephen, and warmed rested up before our afternoon and evening adventures.
I was wondering when you were going to have a Montreal bagel. I would never have guessed that Rich would order sesame. Glad you enjoyed it. We actually can get fresh GF bagels at this little deli not too far from Atlantic Highlands. I will pick one up for Davia some day. I haven’t tried one yet, but heard that the gluten is not missed.