10 scrumptious facts about Montreal's St-Viateur bagels

Along with devouring St-Viateur bagels by the dozen, why not scarf back some equally tasty facts about the Montreal landmark?

That way, the next time you and your friends are inhaling bagfuls of bagels, you can offer a side order of facts they may not have known.

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We spoke with Nick Piazza, the bagel shop’s manager, to confirm facts about arguably the best bagel shop in the city.

How many of these facts did you already know?

The flagship location bakes over 1,000 dozen bagels per day

For those of you keeping score at home, that’s over 12,000 bagels PER DAY.

The sesame seed bagel is St-Viateur’s most popular

Where are all my sesame seed lovers at? Sorry poppy seed fans, Piazza says sesame seeds are the chain’s most popular choice.

One batch of dough makes 55 dozen bagels

One batch of dough is enough to make 660 individual bagels. From start to finish, it takes about one hour and 15 minutes to make a batch of doughy bagels.

St-Viateur delivers bagels to Hawaii

St-Viateur has customers who do regular monthly orders from Prince Rupert, BC, and Piazza says they do regular deliveries to Hawaii!

“Officially we only ship within Canada and the USA,” says Piazza. “However, we know people who have sent our bagels to Dubai, Italy, Australia, and Ireland!”

St-Viateur goes through about 12,000 lbs of flour per week

That’s 624,000 pounds of flour per year. That’s a lot of dough.

Bagel-making training takes more than three months

Piazza says “only a very select few can earn the praise that they have perfected the skill” of making bagels. He says it takes about three months of training and practice for new employees to make good enough bagels to sell.

Montreal-style bagels are sweeter than New York’s

In the constant debate between which bagels are better, Piazza says that Montreal bagels are sweeter, denser, and all made by hand (in a wood-burning oven), boiled in honey-infused water, and then baked compared to the machine-made, thicker, and saltier New York-style ones.

Montreal bagels are superior. Don’t @ us.

St-Viateur donates unsold bagels to local food banks

Piazza says most of the shop’s bagels are sold out every day across all of its locations. For the few that aren’t, they are donated to local food banks across the Montreal metropolitan area. A partnership that Piazza says has been in place for “many, many years.”

Bagels are boiled for about 5 minutes before getting baked

St-Viateur bagels are boiled in honey-infused water for four to five minutes before baking, resulting in the pastry’s sweetness.

There’s no wrong way to eat a bagel

Piazza says everyone eats their bagel differently. He says some of his staff eat it whole, others rip it into small pieces. The most popular way, according to shop’s manager, is to add some cream cheese, smoked salmon, onions, and capers. “After sprinkling a touch of lemon on it, I believe in our world that is as close to perfect as it gets!”

Thanks for your decades of tastiness, St-Viateur. Long live the Montreal-style bagel.