After I published my article about American Jewish deli culture, so many of you wanted more! Requests started pouring in from readers who remembered their favorite Jewish delis, bakeries, and restaurants in countries all over the world. Some shared childhood memories, others told me about places their parents and grandparents loved, and quite a few insisted that their hometown had the best Jewish food anywhere.
Well, how could I resist that? I packed my imaginary suitcase, put on my stretchiest pants, and set off on a virtual historical foodie tour. I went looking for the immigrant families who opened little bakeries, the grandmothers whose recipes became restaurant menus, and the neighborhood institutions where people have been ordering the same sandwich for generations. By the time I finished, I was craving smoked meat, salt beef, pickles, and six different kinds of pastry. I also discovered that Jewish people have managed to turn arguing about bagels into an international pastime. Because, of course they did.
Toronto deserves its own stop, very first stop on this food tour, and I have quite a soft spot for this one. Long before I started researching the history of Jewish delis…or even thought to, for that matter, I knew exactly where I wanted to go for a good bagel in Toronto.
The Bagel Restaurant.
I remember the dark interior, the booths, and those big, beautiful bagels piled with cream cheese and lox. The kind of place where you settled in, ordered something delicious, and didn’t feel any particular urgency to leave. To this day, I can picture it.
And here’s something very cool I discovered while researching this article. An archival photograph from the Toronto Star, dated December 23, 1987, shows Benny Posner and his wife, Harriet, the owners of The Bagel Restaurant, as they prepared to hand the business over to new owners. There they were, the people behind a restaurant I remembered so fondly, looking back at me from a newspaper photograph decades later.
Toronto’s Jewish food culture had been growing for generations by then. Jewish immigrants established butcher shops, bakeries, groceries, and delicatessens along streets such as Spadina Avenue and Kensington Avenue, where the aromas of freshly baked bread, smoked fish, and pickles became part of neighborhood life.
As families moved north into neighborhoods such as Forest Hill, Bathurst Manor, and eventually Thornhill, their favorite foods followed. Bagel shops, kosher bakeries, appetizing counters, and delicatessens became gathering places where you could pick up a dozen bagels, order a smoked-meat sandwich, or spend far too long deciding which pastries to bring home.
Toronto developed its own Jewish food traditions, drawing from the same Eastern European roots as Montreal and New York but growing into something distinctly local. There were smoked fish platters, towering deli sandwiches, blintzes, knishes, and enough varieties of cheesecake to make choosing just one an unreasonable expectation.
And then there were the bagels. Some people wanted them dense and chewy, others preferred them soft and generously sized, especially when there was a substantial helping of cream cheese and lox involved. I belonged firmly to the second camp whenever we went to The Bagel.
Finding that old photograph of Benny and Harriet Posner made me smile. I started this article remembering a restaurant from my childhood, and ended up discovering a little piece of its history.
Now, if someone could just bring me one of those bagels, I’d be forever indebted.
