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Montreal-Style Bagelry Takes a Stand at Lincoln Park Market
- Bob Benenson
- 8 hours ago
- 2 min read
Is New York the Only City with Great Bagels? Some Montreal Fans Say Non
I paid a visit Saturday (July 25) to The Lincoln Park Farmers Market. I found what undoubtedly will be a short pause in the new-in-season produce rollout, although I did buy my first eggplants of the season (baba ghanoush, here we come).
I got them along with potatoes from Yang Town (Rockford, Illinois), dill pickle chips from Pickled Prince (Chicago), plums from Los Rodriguez Farm (Eau Claire, Michigan), cremini mushrooms purchased from The Urban Canopy (Chicago);,and bialys from Lefty's Righteous Bagels (Evanston, Illinois), and more about that below.
Then I went across Armitage Ave. to visit my friends at Daly's Donuts, where I picked up two of their delicious baked blueberry streusel doughnuts. If you want great treats served by some of the nicest people in Chicago, you should stop in.
Back to the bialys. Lefty's, which opened a few months ago on Chicago Ave. in Evanston, specializes in Montreal-style bagels. If you are a serious bagel maven or are from or have visited Montreal, you probably know what that is. There is, in fact, an existential argument about whether New York City (my hometown) is the king of bagel making, or if Montreal has stolen the crown.
While the rolls from both places are round with a hole in the middle, they are different enough to be regarded as separate sub-species. Montreal-style bagels tend to be smaller and denser that New York bagels, with crispier crusts. Some Montreal bagels are thinner and have wider holes, though as the photo above indicates, that doesn't appear to be the case at Lefty's.
The other significant differences are that Montreal bagels, unlike New York bagels, have little to no salt in the dough; they do have sweetener (usually honey), and the water for pre-boiling is also sweetened; and Montreal bagels are baked in wood-burning ovens.
I will engage first-person in the discussion soon, but I opted for the bialys because I love bialys and they are darn hard to find in Chicago. Unlike bagels, bialys don't have a hole in the middle, but instead an impression that is often filled with sauteed onions and poppy seeds like the ones I bought (Lefty's varieties with pepperoni and with peaches are kind of a new twist).
Anyway, if you have a side in the Montreal vs. New York bagel war, feel free to weigh in.