The Plateau and Mile End: Staircases, Smoked Meat and the Bagel Duel

The Plateau is at its best when the balconies and terraces are in use, roughly May through October. Weekday late mornings mean a shorter line at Schwartz’s and room to breathe on the Main. Summer weekends bring the street festivals, which are fun but slow the walk down.

Sherbrooke metro puts you at the start, and Laurier metro is the nearest station to the Mile End finish, about a 20-minute walk east along Avenue Laurier. Both are on the orange line. Buses run up and down Boulevard Saint-Laurent if you want to skip the long stretch of the Main.

Schwartz’s has been curing and smoking its brisket since 1928, and you order it by fat level: lean, medium, medium-fat or fat. Medium and medium-fat are the regulars’ choice. The classic order is a sandwich on rye with mustard, fries, a pickle and a black cherry soda. If the line is long, Schwartz’s take-out counter next door usually moves faster.

Fairmount Bagel opened in 1919 and St-Viateur in 1957, and both still hand-roll their bagels, boil them in honey water and bake them in wood-fired ovens. Montreal bagels are smaller, denser and sweeter than New York’s. Buy a warm sesame from each, eat them on the sidewalk, and pick a side; everyone in the city has one.

The Plateau has few big hotels, but plenty of small inns and short-term apartments in the same plexes you walk past. You get cafés, bakeries and Parc La Fontaine on your doorstep and the metro nearby. Check that a short-term rental is properly registered: Quebec requires it, and the city has cracked down on illegal listings.

The outdoor staircases date largely from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when rules pushed new buildings back from the street. Putting the stairs outside let builders use the whole lot for living space and avoided heating a stairwell through a Montreal winter. They are now the city’s most recognisable piece of everyday architecture.

The park’s two linked ponds, waterfall, lawns and open space are a natural pause about a third of the way in. Bagels are an easy sell to children, and the finish in Mile End is well timed for a snack before heading back.

A warm bagel straight from the oven is one of the best cheap bites in Canada, and both original shops are take-out counters. Grab a bag for the next morning’s breakfast too; they are at their best the day they are baked, but still very good toasted the day after.

The Plateau is one of the most heavily cycled parts of the city, and several streets on this route have protected bike lanes between the sidewalk and the road. Look before you step off the curb, and stay out of the lanes when you stop for photos.