any crimes have been committed against the defenceless bagel in recent years, from trashing its innocent body with various cheese and peppers - to puffing it up with dots of caramalized onions, cheesing it beyond recognition to piling it high with fresh Atlantic salmon. And don't even get me started with on the sweetened varieties.

But even as the downtown core has become lousy with mass-produced bagelesque clones sporting McDonalds-ish layouts and bagels grotesquely swollen to the size of life preservers, St. Viateur Bagels has continued to make the best bagels in Montreal in its original headquarters in Pleateau: plump, semigloss bagels with dense innards and a sweet aftertaste, a deeply golden color lightening at the edges, and a brittle, crisp crust that somehow fades into a leathery, chewy skin.

You can get St. Viateur Bagels at many of the better delicatessens in town, but there is nothing like a fresh, naturally sweet bagel, still warm from the oven, picked up from St. Viateur Bagels itself. Late at night, a hot bagel smells like a God-damn angel. - M.A.