St. Viateur Bagels and Chalet BBQ Rôtisserie in Montreal

So my brother and I were on our way to a funeral in Montreal, and to cheer ouselves up, we decided to go straight to the Chalet Bar-B-Q (5456 Sherbrooke West near Decarie, 514-489-7235), a beloved community fixture for west-end Montrealers and an icon of our own childhoods and adolescences.

As the man said, you can't go home again, but the Chalet BBQ is as close to unchanged as a restaurant could be after 55 years in the same location. Same overwhelming aroma of smoky chicken; same rooster mosaic in the terazzo floor; same wood-panelled takeout area; same paper menus-cum-placemats; same strong-armed, capable waitresses. Half a century of airborne chicken fat has permeated and seemingly petrified the structure.

Maybe we feel that we're being a little indulgent to the inner children, but it's a tough trip and we deserve a little coddling, right? So we walk in and what do we find? Ten of the other people going to the same funeral are already there. I guess you'd have to say it's an NDG thing.

Perhaps easier to explain to the Toronto crowd is the obligatory pilgrimage to buy some real bagels. Now you can get serviceable bagels all over the place in Montreal; there's no pressing need to go to Fairmont or St. Viateur, but if you've been jonesing for the real thing for five years, there's nothing like the slap of wood smoke that hits you as soon as you walk through the door of a genuine bagel bakery.

A Toronto bagel entrepreneur once told me that Montreal bylaws permit the eggy dough to stand long enough to begin to ferment just a little, something that Toronto Health won't allow here. Be that as it may, I know of no Toronto outlet that can match the springiness, chewiness and tangy flavour of a true Montreal bagel.

At St. Viateur Bagels (158 St. Viateur West near Park, 514-270-2972), the dough is sliced off, rolled out and twisted into shape by hand, the correct and traditional method (below).

There also has to be some important essence charred into the walls of the 50-year-old oven and the traditional plank paddles and the very air itself. Yes, you can buy St. Viateur bagels here in Toronto (at Hotel Le Germain and Metro stores, for example), but nothing beats lining up and getting them straight out of the fire.

Don't tell anyone, but of the three dozen we bought, only 32 actually made it back to the car, two blocks away.)