beauty's is one of the restaurants that represent the soul and history of montreal's culinary culture, it's often mentioned along the likes of schwartz, wilensky and st-viateur. what sets it apart are its brunches, it's said to be the birth place of brunch in montreal. some even went so far as saying one hasn't really visited montreal without a visit to beauty's. but for some reason, i haven't visited it yet until last sunday, as a long time montrealers, i felt a bit guilty about it.
like many of the old culinary institutions, the exterior of beautiy's is quite modest, almost looks like a giant metal box, but it's interior is filled with history and glory, on the walls of its small corridor were a large collection of post of its press exposures.
inside the restaurant are rows of old fashioned booths with soft benches, and a long bar along its kitchen where you can see your brunches being made in front of your eyes. various pictures of the owners and its vip guests dotted the walls.
it's obvious that beauty's is a family run restaurant with most of its staff being the offsprings of its original owner, mr. beauty's. although mr. beauty's already passed the baton to his children, he still comes to the restaurant himself as if to make sure the new generation is running the restaurant strictly in the high standards he has set for decades and customers are satisfied. so from the moment i walked through the door i could tell all the staff are quite hospital and polite, and they all go out of the way to make you feel at home. even mr. beauty's himself would occasionally came to the door way to greet the line and he would ask the waitresses to refill coffee or water when he saw a customer's cups were emptied. this strike me as a stark contrast with some other established restaurants such as the schewartzs' where the staff is bit ignorant and even arrogant.
alright, let's get down to talk about its food. the restaurant is positioned as a luncheonette meaning they only open for breakfast and lunch. so they have a quite comprehensive brunch menu that include everything you could think of for a typical breakfast or lunch, top on the list of course are their famed brunches and omelettes, in addition, you'll find everything from soup, salad to burger, crepe and waffle etc,
since it's my first visit, i tried to stick to the classics. for brunches, they have beauty's basic, super beauty 2 and beauty's special. the first 2 are very typical brunches with eggs, fries, bagel, one or multiple of breakfast meats such as bacon, ham, salami. i was told beautify's special is their signature dish. so of cause, i went for it. another dish i have wanted to try is their trade-mark omelette called mish-mash.
the beauty's special is essentially a giant bagel sandwich. with slices of tomatoes, red onion, smoked salmon and creme cheese layered perfectly between two wood-fire baked bagel buns. i was wowed by it immediately after the very first bite. every ingredient in the sandwitch is so fresh you can literally smell it, the tomato was succulent, the red onion was crispy with a hint of spiciness, the salmon filet was as fresh as sashimi with a light smokiness , the cream cheese was not too salty and serves as a perfect spread for the bagel buns, but the real star of the sandwich was the bagel itself, it was crunchy, tasty with just the right amount of firmness and a very pleasant wood-fire aroma. it was just perfect for me. some say that the bagel was from st-viatur, so i'm not sure who should get the credit.
the mish-mash omelet was good too, but not perfect. the home fries are actually pan seared thin potato slices, i would like it better had it been cooked like hash brown, the omelet was well fried and tasted good, but the hot dog wasn't of the best quality, in addition it would mix better with the eggs had it been minced rather than sliced. and i didn't see any trace of salami and grilled onion in it which were mentioned on the menu.
over all i was very impressed with their food and service, will for sure visit again to try some other classic dishes and their smoothies which seem to be quite popular too. beauty's lives up to its reputation.