What’s the Difference between Montreal Bagels and New York Bagels? | DeIorios (2024)

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What’s the Difference between Montreal Bagels and New York Bagels? | DeIorios? ›

There are a few key differences between Montreal's and New York's bagels. For starters, Montreal's bagels are smaller and thinner, with a larger hole in the center. They're also baked in a wood-fired oven, whereas New York's bagels go in a conventional oven, according to Delish.

Montreal bagels tend to be smaller, thinner, sweeter and less salty than their New York City counterparts. Both are boiled, but Montreal employs wood-burning ovens for baking, while New York utilizes burlap planks. Many NYC loyalists tout the local tap water as the secret ingredient.

A New York–style bagel is always boiled in water that has had barley malt added, which gives a bagel its signature taste, texture, and leathery skin.

Compared to a “New York style bagel”, what makes the Montréal bagel the far superior is that, not only is each single bagel is made by hand, but they are poached in honey water before being baked in a wood-fire burning oven. This cooking process gives the bagel its distinctive chewiness, golden color and crust.

The Key to a Real New York Bagel

New York bagels get boiled prior to baking, defining their special texture in a solution of water and barley malt. A long boil and thicker crust inhibit rising, resulting in a dense interior while a short boil yields a crusty yet chewy bagel bite.

a regular bagel is a strange step in the cooking process. Traditional New York style bagels are submerged in boiling water for a couple of minutes before they're baked. Sometimes called "water bagels," boiling the dough sets the outside to give them a crispy exterior and chewy texture.

Whereas, the standard size of a Montreal bagel is thinner, smaller and has a larger hole as compared to the New York one. The Montreal bagel has a calorie range of 120-220. This means it is definitely healthier than other versions of a bagel.

Its very small bagels are made in a wood-burning oven and sweetened with honey. They do not need to be toasted if they are eaten within four hours of being purchased (why anyone would wait that long is beyond me). After four hours, Montreal bagels join the ranks of need-to-be-toasted bagels.

The most popular kinds of bagel

Cinnamon raisin is crowned America's favorite bagel, with 27.8% of respondents picking it as a top choice. Often eaten for breakfast, this sweet bagel typically has vanilla extract, sugar, cinnamon and raisins added to the dough, making for a tasty morning treat.

With their endless variations of savoury and sweet flavours, toppings and fillings, bagels are one of New York City's most iconic foods.

What do New Yorkers call cream cheese on a bagel? ›

In American Jewish cuisine, a bagel and cream cheese is sometimes called a "whole schmear" or "whole schmeer". A "slab" is a bagel with a slab of cream cheese on top. A "lox and a schmear" is to a bagel with cream cheese and lox or “Nova” smoked salmon.

To toast or not to toast

New Yorkers are in agreement: if a bagel is well made and fresh, you should never toast it. It would be like taking a perfectly cooked steak and throwing it back on the fire. A fresh bagel in New York City means it has been made in the past 5 hours.

According to many (mostly New Yorkers) the water used in the dough gets all the credit for making New York bagels superior to others. Popular mythology tells us that the soft water that trickles down from the Catskills in upstate New York has a profound effect on the softness of the bagels.

"If someone is coming to the city and they want to get a classic New York bagel, they're probably gonna go to Ess-a-bagel." Ess-a-bagel has four locations throughout the city: three in Manhattan and one in Brooklyn, which means visitors to the city will almost always find an Ess-a-bagel nearby.

Well, thanks to the St. Louis Bread Company (or Panera Bread), we have bagels sliced into several vertical pieces. They take the orthodox bagel and liberate it from its imprisoning “O” shape to become just oddly-shaped bread slices.

Montreal's City has about 1.7–2.5 million people compared to NYC which has about 8.1–10 million people. That's a huge difference in size. NYC def wins. In terms of land area Montreal is around 166 sq miles compared to NYC's 305 sq miles.

The Boiling Process

Many other bagel shops throughout the rest of the United States simply put the dough straight into the oven once its been rolled to save on time and money, but cutting out this extra step of boiling the dough is another big reason why non-NYC bagels don't taste nearly as good as NYC bagels do.