I Learned How To Make Montreal Bagels At St-Viateur & It's Way Harder Than You'd Think

As someone who has consumed countless Montreal bagels, I'd never quite appreciated the art of bagel-making. That is until I stepped into the legendary St-Viateur Bagel Shop as a 'dough-eyed' novice and tried my hand under the watchful eye of co-owner Vince Morena.

Armed with nothing but the hubris of a few home-baking sessions, I hoped to crack the code of the iconic Montreal food by learning from the master himself. But going from bagel bystander to baker is a feat that makes kneading a loaf of bread feel like child's play.

When life hands you dough, make Montreal-style bagels

Stepping into St-Viateur, I was greeted with the delightful scent of fresh bagels — a blend of yeast, sesame, and a hint of a wood-fired oven. Morena handed me a shirt and apron, quickly turning me into the Mile End's most underqualified baker.

Vince Morena showing Sofia how to shape the dough.David Rawalia | MTL Blog

I soon learned that making bagels isn't just about measuring and mixing. It's about muscle. Every morning at 4 a.m., a mechanical mixer churns out a whopping 180-pound mound of dough.

"You've got to be able to make a dozen bagels every minute," Morena said as I struggled to put enough weight into the rolling motion to make the strip of dough in front of me do my bidding.

Knead to know

Transforming the dough into a bagel ring is a laborious exercise, requiring strength and precision. Aggressively kneading the dough on the countertop required my whole upper body strength to shape it into a uniform tube.

I looped it over my right hand and used my left to tear off the overlapping end. The dough's elasticity was both a blessing and a challenge, allowing the dough to maintain its shape but needing a strong pull to break it off.

Wrapping the dough around the hand to get the size and shape right.David Rawalia | MTL Blog

This process was far from the romantic, effortless craft I'd imagined. The reality involves a workout and immense respect for those who do it every day.

"The main difference between hand-rolled and machine-rolled is the texture. If you take any one of our bagels, none of them are the same," said Morena.

Morena could shape a perfect bagel blindfolded — a practice he has been perfecting since childhood. In fact, most of the people working in the bakery have been there for over a decade.

Another long-serving employee, with cataracts in both eyes, still crafts perfect bagels by touch alone, Morena tells me.

Boil, oh boil

Once we had a motley crew of bagels ready — my non-conformist creations clearly adding a touch of 'character' — the rings were plunged into boiling water with a splash of honey. The process helps them rise in the oven and gives them a glossy crust.

"It's as simple as water and maybe a cup of honey in 40 litres of water," Morena said. The honey-infused dip is what gives Montreal bagels their distinctive sweet-savoury balance and distinguishes them from their New York counterpart.

The boiler, aka. bagel hot tub.David Rawalia | MTL Blog

Plump, chewy New York bagels are prepared with less mineralized water, yielding a thicker, breadier texture with a robust crust.

Montreal bagels, on the other hand, are smaller and thinner. They're denser too, typically with a more substantial hole in the centre. It's during the boiling stage that the unique Montreal characteristics flourish.

Post-boil, the rings are hot to handle and rolled in either poppy seeds or sesame seeds, adding a crunch and texture that counterbalances their sweetness and also makes them easier to touch. They get lined up on a wooden board to load into the oven in two columns of about two dozen each.

After their steamy honey dip, the bagels are piping hot, so a quick shimmy in the sesame seeds cools them off.David Rawalia | MTL Blog

No heat, no treat

Onto the baking stage, or as Morena explained, "The hardest part of our process."

"You're dealing with fire, which is dynamic," he said. With no dials or gauges on the oven, it's down to the master baker's intuition and years of experience.

Almost every minute, a batch is flipped until no bagel is left unturned."When they rise up, they're done," Morena explained.

The St-Viateur wood-fire oven bakes four dozen bagels every rotation.David Rawalia | MTL Blog

St-Viateur shifted to burning eco logs in the oven about a decade ago. They burn cleaner than natural wood, produce less smoke, and make it easier to regulate the temperature, a critical point of control to avoid "losing the oven," as Morena put it.

"If you lose the oven, you have too much fire. Your bagels are burning," he said.

Though Morena makes it look easy, one misstep can result in scorched bagels, a grimy oven, and a cleanup task that no one wants.

Here crumbs the best part

After witnessing the careful crafting process, it was time to taste. Pulling a warm St-Viateur bagel out of a brown paper bag is pure bliss. But grabbing one you've clumsily molded yourself adds a moment of strange pride — like staring at a misshapen clay pot from your first pottery class, but significantly more delicious.

The most popular bagel at St-Viateur is sesame. But not all customers come in for the traditional options. In 1996, St-Viateur started adding flavours to cater to growing demand, introducing varieties like cinnamon raisin and the "everything," or rather, "all-dressed" bagel to their repertoire.

Sofia and Vince take the bagels they prepped out of the oven.David Rawalia | MTL Blog

"People come here, so we get a lot of tourists. But any Montrealer is all 'sesame, sesame, sesame!' I still say it's the best thing in the world," said Morena.

His personal favourite way to enjoy a bagel? Hot out of the oven. "I've been here my whole life, and there's still that moment I smell a hot bagel coming out of the oven. Sometimes I can't resist — I just have to have one," he said.

After my immersive bagel-making experience, I can safely say that I'm better suited to eating bagels than making them. Thankfully, Morena gave me some encouragement, "There are tutorials online, and some people make nice bagels at home."

He offered a nugget of advice, recommending a non-stick sheet or a wooden plank to give homemade bagels that authentic, wood-fired flavour.

Maybe there's hope for me yet. Until then, I'll leave the crafting to the masters at St-Viateur.