St-Viateur’s bagels are much loved in Montreal and abroad. (Destination Canada photo)
In a frosty time for Canada-U.S. relations, Tourisme Montréal brought some good-natured heated rivalry to a travel conference in New York last month.
Emili Bellefleur and Martine Venne of Tourisme Montréal, the city’s destination marketing agency, wore sweatshirts with the slogan: “Montréal bagels are better than New York’s” at IMM, North America’s largest travel industry-media marketplace.
As they hoped, the shirts from Toronto-based leisurewear brand Province of Canada got people talking at the annual conference, where 450 international travel brands meet with more than 500 media for a packed day of 10-minute one-on-one appointments.
Martine Venne (left) and Emili Bellefleur of Tourisme Montreal had some good-natured elbowing for their New York hosts with fashionable bagel-loving shirts, worn at an international travel show in January. (Linda Barnard photo for Vacay.ca)
Highlighting the bagel battle helped Montréal stand out at a crowded convention, said Bellefleur. And they got plenty of support. Both American and Canadian delegates showed love for Montréal’s bagels.
While the cross-border bagel competition has been simmering a while, Tourisme Montréal fired the first salvo of 2026 on January 15, National Bagel Day in the U.S. They sent St-Viateur Bagel co-owner Vince Morena to New York for a televised challenge on FOX 5 New York’s midday show, The Noon.
New York food blogger Jeremy Jacobowitz, who chronicles the bagel orders of local luminaries on his YouTube channel, chose Ess-A-Bagel to go up against St-Viateur.
Morena told The Noon host Bianca Peters that history is on St-Viateur’s side. “We’ve been using the same oven since 1957,” he said.
“We put a lot of love into our bagels,” said Morena of the family-owned business.
St-Viateur’s bagels are handmade in small batches using natural ingredients and bathed in honey water before baking on wooden planks in a wood-fired oven. They’re made 24/7 and the best way to have them is Montréal-style: hot from the kiln with no cream cheese or fillings, Morena said.
Peters tasted, compared, and declared St-Viateur the winner.
Tourisme Montréal approached Province of Canada co-founder Jeremy Watt about wearing the sweatshirts at IMM.
The cheeky wearable bagel challenge “is our patriotic statement through culinary debate,” said Watt, who started the company with his wife, Julie Brown, in 2013. The Canadian-made brand features local place names and patriotic messaging like “Basketball is Canadian.”
Watt came up with the bagel slogan as Province of Canada’s version of “elbows up”, calling it a heartfelt approach to standing our national ground.
Le Trou bagel shop in Montreal’s Griffintown is known for its endless amount of choice and flavours. (Photo by Elodie Meyer)
Watt’s parents are from Montréal. Brown is Québécoise, from the Châteauguay Valley. They both love Montréal bagels and have a bone to pick with New York, which insists its doughier, larger versions are superior.
I’m a Montréal sesame-seed bagel lover from way back. My weakness is the Beautys Special served at historic Beautys Luncheonette on Mont-Royal: Cream cheese, smoked salmon, red onion, and tomato on a toasted St-Viateur sesame bagel.
Bellefleur said most Montréal neighbourhoods have a beloved bagel maker, including Montréal’s Fairmont Bagels, Le Trou in Griffintown, Verdun’s Bagel St-Lo and R.E.A.L. Bagel in Côte-des-Neiges.
How NYC Bagels Compare to Canada’s Best
Liberty Bagels have a hit on their hands with their rainbow creation. (Linda Barnard photo for Vacay.ca)
Could New York hold a candle to Montréal? I hit four of the highest-rated bagel shops in Manhattan, according to social media, including St-Viateur challenger Ess-A-Bagel. I had sesame-seed bagels Montréal style; no cream cheese or fillings.
Overall, a New York bagel is much bigger, fluffier, and more bread-like than its chewy, and crisp-exterior Montréal cousin. New Yorkers tend to pile on the fillings, too.
I started at Russ & Daughters, where a flabby bagel with a meagre sprinkle of sesame seeds was a bust. But I picked up an excellent chocolate babka, so I considered it a win.
At Liberty Bagels, servers use ice cream scoops to load a choice from two dozen varieties of cream cheese on massive bagels. They’re proud of their social media darling, the rainbow bagel, a Play-Doh-like twist that can be paired with a hefty splat of birthday cake cream cheese.
The two-inch-tall sesame bagel was almost the width of my hand, with a good amount of sesame seeds and a bit more chew than Russ & Daughters. But it was bland and tasted more of bread than bagel. Some of the bagels at the pick-up counter looked more like dinner rolls. Where’s the hole?
Ess-a-Bagel had a lineup to the door for its bagels, which were still warm from the oven. They sell a rainbow bagel, too. My fresh bagel had a good amount of sesame seeds, but it was so big I could barely get it in my mouth. It had a better flavour than the first two stops but was too soft and didn’t satisfy my bagel craving.
Black Seed Bagel just may be tops in the Big Apple. (Linda Barnard photo for Vacay.ca)
Black Seed Bagels was the clear winner. Its website says it makes New York-style bagels “with some baking techniques borrowed from Montreal.”
They’re hand-made and get a honey-water bath before baking in a wood-fired oven. The bagel was thin, crispy outside, and chewy-tender inside with the right density and a generous sesame-seed coating that picked up nutty notes from the oven.
Black Seed Bagels executive chef Dianna Daoheung is the clear New York bagel champ. And all it took was some help from Montreal.
Meanwhile, Province of Canada is continuing to wear its national pride. The company has partnered with the producers’ of Crave’s breakout hockey romance “Heated Rivalry” on a replica of player Shane Hollander’s (Canadian actor Hudson Williams) Team Canada zip-up fleece from the show.
