Deli Classic · Montreal Smoked Meat

Montreal Smoked Meat Sandwich

📷 Closely related photo — Photo: Mixwell / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0

Regulars order it by fat level — lean, medium, or fatty — and the classic delis still slice it by hand because the tender brisket shreds in a machine.

Beef brisket is dry-rubbed with spices, brined for over a week, smoked, then steamed until tender and hand-sliced thick onto rye bread with mustard. Delis and takeout counters around Montreal, most famously in the Plateau, pile it high and serve it fast.

Why it's made this way: Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe brought smoked-meat curing traditions to Montreal in the early 1900s, and the technique took root as a distinctly local specialty, thicker-cut and smokier than New York pastrami.