The Bagel Oven in Food & Drink

​Summer 2020

We were recently featured in the LCBO's Food & Drink Magazine. Read the whole article about Niagara's amazing food and drink scene starting on p.93, or jump to the mention about us on p.98! We ar so incredibly proud to have been described as one of Niagara's top three food artisans!

St. Catharines Standard - Readers' Choice Awards 2017

Friday, October 27, 2017

A big THANK YOU to our bagel fans who voted us readers' choice for best bagel in this year's contest. Click here for a complete listing of all the 2017 winners!

HOT BAGELS

Check out this amazing 16mm short about bagel making in Brooklyn circa 1970. It's worth the seven and a half minutes!

Although the recipe is slightly different from out Montreal-Style version, it will give you a sense of the process that goes into, and long-standing tradition behind, creating hand-made bagel.

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THE BAGEL BAKER'S UNION OF THE LOWER EAST SIDE

by Zachary Solomon
October 23, 2015

In the early 20th century, there were so many bagel makers, in fact, that a trade union local needed to be established to fight for workers’ rights. Which is why 300 bagel craftsmen joined together to form the Local 338. By 1915, the local represented 34 area bakeries.

Gentrified, jalapeno-and-tofu-spread monstrosities these were not. The Local 338 had strict rules for how a bagel should be crafted: weighing two to three ounces, a proper bagel was made with high-gluten flour and mixed with malt syrup, salt, water, and yeast. They were half the size of what we’re used to today and​...
​A snapshot of turn-of-the-century Lower East Side reveals Jewish greenhorns peddling, hawking, and bargaining in Yiddish. There are meat and fish carts, vegetables, tailors, artists, and theater-troupes. And, of course, there are bagels.
LET'S EAT!

with Zane Caplansky 
Saturday July 22, 2017

Recently I had the opportunity to sit down and chat with Zane Caplansky (owner of Caplansky's Delicatessen) on his radio program Let's Eat! which airs weekly on News Talk Radio 1010. 

It was a hoot! We talked about everything bagels...the history...the science...the debate over Montreal vs. New York vs. Toronto-style...​
Left to Right: Lisa (taste-tester), Zane, Jess
Jess Bretzlaff bags fresh sesame seed bagels in the kitchen of the Congregation B'Nai Israel, where she operates her bagel business, The Bagel Oven.
Tiffany Mayer is the author of Niagara Food: A Flavourful History of the Peninsula’s Bounty (The History Press, 2104). She also blogs about food and farming at eatingniagara.com.

EATING NIAGARA: Challah! "Jewish" bagels come to Niagara
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By Tiffany Mayer
Tuesday June 2, 2015

About a year ago at this time, I sank my teeth into a grocery store bagel and lamented my decision. It was dry, flavourless and had the pallor of a Canadian’s legs after a long winter. It was nothing but doughnut-shaped bread posing as the bagel I wished it would be - so much so, that I tweeted I’d give up my retirement savings to start a proper bagel shop here. It would be equipped with a wood-fired oven and turn out the toothsome Jewish baking I longed for in Niagara. Good news is, I don’t have to put my RRSPs where my mouth is because someone else has already done it...

CANADIAN JEWISH NEWS: Niagara foodies seduced by "Jewish" bagels

By Jodie Shupac 
September 29, 2014

Before last spring, Jessica Bretzlaff had never baked a challah in her life. Now, the 37-year-old mother of two operates her own bagel and challah business, called The Bagel Oven, in the Niagara region, and is rapidly filling a niche among the region’s bread-starved foodies Jewish and non-Jewish alike...