St-Viateur Bagel & Café (Jan 11th 2009)

The Breakfast Club ventured into the ever-busy Plateau neighbourhood for this week’s review. Places were packed and wait-times long so we finally settled on St-Viateur Bagel & Café situated at1127 av. Mont-Royal est.

The place was packed…but at least there was no line-up. The five of us huddled around two small round tables towards the front of the restaurant waiting to be served…after what felt like 30 minutes later, we finally were.

I’m actually not sure we should classify this place a “breakfast” joint. Yes there are bagels…yes there is coffee…and yes you can order an egg on a bagel…but this is where the breakfast fun stops.

Firstly, almost all the bagels on the menu are served as sandwiches with either soup or salad accompanying them.

I ordered the “jaws” bagel plate (a tuna salad sandwich) with an artichoke salad on the side. There is a large selection of bagels there and I chose the tasty “everything bagel.” Bagels here are cooked on-site in a wood oven (Just like at the original St. Viateur Bagel.) They are fresh, authentic and delicious. My meal was quite delicious although I found the tuna salad to be a little dry (-they served mayo on the side instead of in the sandwich?) Although my meal was tasty, it was really lunch fare – not breakfast. And, as with most lunch-places, coffee is not included with the price of the meal (a real-drawback in my opinion.) My breakfast with the coffee cost 13.75 + tip.

I have to say the service was quite lacking. While our waiter was a nice guy, it took forever to be served, and he also made several errors in the service (Ian did not get the drink he ordered and they forgot to put the pesto on David’s Turkey-pesto bagelwich).

Ambience-wise the place is nice enough. It is cool to see the bagels being cooked…but I felt like the place kind of couldn’t make up its mind what it wanted to be…French-style bistro, casual café, or chic loungesque plateau eatery. The combo of round marble tables, industrial-chic brick walls, and chichi crystal chandeliers was a bit nauseating. They should keep it real – you're serving bagels – decorate accordingly.

Over-all Rating: 2.5-sporks on 5
The Breakdown:
Food (was it edible): 4/5
Value (was it worth the $$): 2/5 (not good value for breakfast - for lunch it is fine)
Ambiance (would you become "cool" just by being there): 2.5/5
Service (did they spit in your food): 2/5