A Montreal smoked meat deli with Texan inspirations

It's a rich smell: Deep, peppery bark of properly smoked brisket cutting through the usual Atwater Market mix of fresh produce and weekend crowds.

Follow it past the cheese vendors and flower stalls, all the way to the far end where you'll find Antoine Bériault doing something that should probably be impossible: making Montreal smoked meat that offers its own retooling of the places a city native's grandfather swore by.

Aylwin Deli opened three weeks ago in what used to be a chocolate shop, and while Bériault is still figuring out the rhythm, the product is winning over hearts and minds.

Bériault is a guy who's spent nine seasons perfecting Texas-style barbecue at the seasonal food stand Aylwin BBQ, building a cult following for their Texan barbecue skills alongside his partner Annie Lacombe. Lone Star State types show up, try the food, and come back to ask how they did it.

“Texans come by, we send out food, ask for their feedback—then they come back. They always love it,” he says.

Now? They've got a permanent, year-round space with a deli project that's both a natural evolution and a necessity.

The new digs

"We needed a headquarters for the barbecue," Bériault explains, slicing into a thick-cut sandwich that looks nothing like the paper-thin stuff you'll find at most Montreal delis. "The space was just too small. We were always running out of fridge space."

“We were stuck,” he says. “We couldn’t produce more.”

The new spot gives them room for the kind of overnight smoking that makes the difference—whole pork shoulders going into their massive new smoker at night, emerging perfectly cooked in the morning without anyone having to babysit them through the small hours.

“We just season the shoulders whole, set the temperature, and by morning they’re perfectly cooked—no wrap, no nothing. It’s pretty incredible.”

But here's the thing about Aylwin's smoked meat: technically, depending on who you ask, it shouldn't work. Bériault isn't Jewish, doesn't claim to be running a Jewish deli, and brings a Texas barbecue sensibility to what is arguably Montreal's most iconic dish. Before putting the briskets in the smoker, he goes "hard on the pepper to get that nice bark"—barbecue technique applied to deli tradition. The result is thicker-cut, more heavily spiced than what you'll find at the old-school spots, but still recognizably Montreal smoked meat.

The spice blend includes the traditional coriander and mustard seeds, sure, but there's also that barbecue-pit confidence in the smoke and the slice. It's what happens when you take nine years of smoking experience and point it at the city's most sacred sandwich.

"We try to stay true to what a Montreal smoked meat should be," he says. “We’ve been doing smoked meat as specials for six years... We started with a dry cure, but now we’re using a wet brine, smoking them, then steaming them the traditional way.”

“I think we’re maybe a bit more New York in style,” he adds. “And definitely more thick-cut. That’s our barbecue background—we cut brisket how we know it on the board.”

And no, he doesn’t know how Schwartz's makes theirs. “I only know how we do it,” he says. “And it works.”

Adding a new voice to an old conversation

The space itself feels like what would happen if a Texas barbecue joint had to squeeze into a Montreal market stall—all efficiency and honest materials, with 18 seats inside and 20 more on the terrace come spring.

“No designer—just us. We had the winter,” he says.

Hof Kelsten is supplying their challah rolls. The turkey gets a light smoke then gets warmed on the plancha. The bagel and smoked salmon shows up for breakfast and stays all day. “We do our own smoked salmon, we do our own bagel sandwich—that’s another Montreal item we wanted to offer.”

Bériault wouldn't describe their work as anything revolutionary, but it is in keeping with the way the team knows how to do it. They're confident enough in their understanding of Montreal's food traditions to reinterpret them.

Bériault and his team—including longtime BBQ compatriots Cedric Dubois and Maxime Gauthier-Beaudoin—are just adding their voice to a conversation that's been going on for decades with legacy spots.

“We’re not trying to be a Jewish deli,” he says. “First of all, I’m not Jewish. But we do respect what a smoked meat should be. And yeah—people have been asking us to open year-round for years. So we did.”

Asked why he’s still doing this after nine seasons, he shrugs. “It’s the only thing I know how to do. Cooking’s the only thing I’ve ever done to earn a living.”