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    Lox + Schmear

    4.5 (51 reviews)
    Closed Closed

    Lox + Schmear Photos

    Business Info

    LOX + SCHMEAR ATMOSPHERE

    What's the vibe?
    Casual
    Good for kids
    Good for groups

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    The OG Bagel and Lev's Bagel
    Chance K.

    This has to be one of the best bagel sandwiches I've ever had!! You can tell they put a lot of love into their fish and it's perfectly paired with a great bagel, cream cheese, and garnishes. Friendly and fast service was much appreciated. Very happy to support this cute queer-owned cafe and will definitely return.

    Janny L.

    Lox and Schmear is a small-batch fish smokehouse. Their lox (smoked salmon) is hand-sliced, never frozen, and smoked in-house. I recently came to this neighbourhood gem and tried their veggie bagel, and was surprised by the size. The quality was good, and the veggies were fresh. The menu offers several sandwich options and specials that are served on Montreal-style bagels (sourced from St. Urbain bagels), and gluten-free bagels are available. There is also merchandise you can buy. No wait on a weekend morning. Seating options inside and outside. Service was quick. Washroom inside. Only open Friday to Sunday. Catering available.

    Lev's Bagel
    Maddy M.

    Been wanting to try this spot for a while and saw a bagel posted on their Instagram story that I NEEDED TO HAVE! Messaged them immediately and asked which sandwich it was and made plans to go and grab it. Went early in the morning right as they opened (I am traumatized by Toronto restaurants and always try to go as close to opening as possible). Store is located by St Clair and Bathurst, the store itself is pretty spacious and friendly to the eye. Onto the bagel.... it had salmon lox, a bunch of other amazing toppings and CHIPS!! I love a crunch component in my meals so this was the perfect bagel to order. Surprisingly it wasn't too messy to eat either it somehow all stayed together. All the flavours went super well together and it was a pretty generous offering of salmon lox which i enjoyed. Would DEFINITELY come back in a heartbeat for this bagel sandwich, and you should def try it too!!

    Lev's Bagel
    ML L.

    Lox and Schmear is to smoked fish what the Dalai Lama is to happiness...only better. If only the Dalai Lama had thought to layer dill pickle chips in his bagel sandwiches. Lev's Bagel is a masterpiece in taste and composition - buttery lox, pickled onions, exactly the right ratio of cream cheese, salty capers. And, of course, the dill pickle chips. Friendly service and a great local vibe. Support small business.

    6 sesame bagels, $5.25
    Antonia Marie C.

    OMG.... Just OMG!!! WOW. Lez and her staff are awesome. It's quite a large space, with 7 very large tables and 2 cafe tables in front, and very comfortable! I had the Fancy Fancy Crunchy on a toasted sesame bagel. OMG!! So absolutely fantastic! Just spectacular! And definitely get the "crunchy", they add dill pickle chips! Now they don't use tomatoes in the winter, because they taste like cardboard! But you don't miss them at all! And they have smoked salmon prepacks to take home too. The smoked salmon is to die for. It's done in house. That's the big difference. I dislike commercial smoked salmon; I find all you taste is a ton of smoke and nothing else. Not here! The smoked salmon is so fantastic! The sandwiches are not cheap. But, as the saying goes, you (definitely) get what you pay for at Lox & Schmear!!! Parking is a nightmare, so go during the week if you can. And remember that Tuesday they're closed!

    The OG
    Joseph S.

    There's a special kind of taste you expect with a bagel. You want the bread to be fresh and good, the cream cheese to ooze out from the sides and the lox to be smokey and delicious. That's what Lox + Schmear is. Taking a bite out of a bagel loaded with lox, cream cheese, tomato, cucumber, pickled red onions, and dill was taking a bite out of heaven. Before I knew it, the bagel was gone, and I debated with myself if I should get another. It benefits greatly that the bagels are from St. Urbain, one of the premier bagel stops in the St. Lawrence Market, so you know the bagel is top quality. With a menu that's quite simple, it goes to show that they focus on a select few things that they do well. And, clearly, they do it very very well.

    "The easy" menu option.

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    9 years ago

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    7 years ago

    The Fancy Fancy lox bagel sandwich was perfect. Everything was so fresh. I highly recommend this place. It's clean and refreshing.

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    9 years ago

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    8 years ago

    soooooo yummy & great flavors! at first it looks small but it's very filling. i like the minimal atmosphere, and the staff is kind.

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    9 years ago

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    Page 2 of 2

    Review Highlights - Lox + Schmear

    Lev makes the best smoked salmon I've had in Toronto, and some of the best I've had anywhere.

    Mentioned in 6 reviews

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    Bagel & Co

    Bagel & Co

    4.2
    (23 reviews)
    5.5 km
    $

    For visitors from out of town, as I was: there is no signage at street level, nor for that matter…read moreinside. There is a large network of below-ground corridors and shops accessible from the business complex at 120 W Adelaide. Take the escalator down and follow the signs towards the food court. Bagel & Co shares a large, bright, clean, albeit slightly noisy food court with several other food counters. The bagels are decent, considering they are clearly not baked on site, and they have a much smaller selection than I would expect from a proper bagel shop: I saw plain, sesame, rye, and cheese. I also saw some bags of either poppyseed or everything bagels, but it wasn't clear if those were available for sandwiches or only to be bought by the half-dozen in the bags. I had the All Canadian, which is tuna and bacon with chive spread. It also comes with shredded lettuce and with red onion; I had avoided the smoked salmon bagel (the New Yorker) because I was going to a meeting after and didn't want to smell like onions, so it was a bit frustrating to have passed over the likely better sandwich and still get onion breath. lol. The All Canadian was underwhelming: very average to slightly dry tuna salad, and I had to open it up to confirm it contained a minuscule amount of bacon. If you're looking for an average tuna & onion sandwich, the All Canadian here is a fair option. Again, bagel quality was better than I would expect for a restaurant selling bagels that were clearly baked off site earlier today or yesterday. Choice of both bagels and schmears was limited. It's challenging to find for a newcomer but probably very easy for a local.

    Great place for a quick and delicious breakfast. Luckily I had read the reviews and asked someone…read morefor directions. It's a hidden gem. The service was prompt and the egg salad sandwich was brilliant

    Photos
    Whole Grain Bagel with Sundried Tomato Cream Cheese.
    Whole Grain Bagel with Sundried Tomato Cream Cheese.
    Menu October 2018
    Menu October 2018
    All the selections of bagel!

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    All the selections of bagel!
    Bagel Stop

    Bagel Stop

    3.0
    (2 reviews)
    5.7 km

    This place has changed owners. It used to be my fav spot in the mornings. The new owners are nice…read moreand polite but i have a hard time establishing rapport with them. My fav thing to order is the all dressed bagel with the spinach light cream cheese. The old owners used to be more generous with the cream cheese...it would ooze out when you tried to eat it. The new owners are more stingy with the cream cheese and the bagels arent fully toasted. I got one today and it looks that i need to ask for double toasted next time. Their coffee is ok, they provide brown sugar which is a bonus. I generally go to the second cup next door because the coffe is stronger, but albeit more expensive. They also have a loyalty card but I never bothered with that since I don't go there that often. If you have a craving for bagel with cream cheese, this is the place to go. The bagels are generally fresh and the cream cheese is of good quality. My cream cheese bael cost $2.57 tax included which is not a bad deal.

    Ordered a super nova bagel (essentially a lox bagel). The portion is big but I did not feel…read moresatisfied from this bagel. I feel like the bagel was missing ingredients that a usual lox bagel should have. It was also very expensive ($8). Also, another reviewer noted that the bagels were not toasted well and I definitely agree with this point. Not sure if I'll return but the owners were very nice.

    Photos
    Cheese Bagel (+ $0.60) with Plain Cream Cheese
    Cheese Bagel (+ $0.60) with Plain Cream Cheese
    Good selection of cream cheese
    Good selection of cream cheese
    Bagel Stop

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    St. Lawrence Market

    St. Lawrence Market

    4.4
    (766 reviews)
    6.3 km
    $$

    To say that we were blown away would be an understatement- the only place that compares to this is…read morethe Granville Island market, but imagine that place on steroids. The number of vendors is enormous and the choice of meats - beef, chicken, pork, fish, lamb, you name it they have it. They had food stalls that had 50 person line ups. Lots of great reviews on the web for a number of these places and it didn't matter what you were looking for - fruits, veggies, bread, seafood, sandwiches, soups, homemade pasta..... if it isn't here it hasn't been invented or you don't need it. We loved this place. I wish Ottawa could support something like this.

    It's fun to walk around the St Lawrence Market, all two floors of it, just taking it all in. Heads…read moreup that, despite Toronto being a huge immigrant city (50% of its population not born in Canada), ethnic foods are not well represented at the market. But still, this is an exciting place to explore. One of my favorite shops was Mike's Fish Market, which had an incredible variety of smoked fish on display. I was especially attracted to the smoked artic char, but at $50/pound? Even in Canadian dollars, that was intimidating. Oh well, I thought, I will just content myself with a bagel and lox from St Urbain - all the reviews I had read raved about it. So I got in the very long line, and waited and waited and despaired. If you are like me, after a while you start to feel the indignity. Then I had a brilliant idea. I went back to Mike's and asked for four slices of artic char. The price: $8 and change. Then I went to one of the bakeries and bought a Montreal bagel for 0.98c. I found a place at one of the group tables, and made my own bagel and lox! It came to about the same price as I would have paid at St Urbain's, and, although it did not come with the fixings, I had the premium fish I had been lusting after. I am a bit of a purist when it comes to smoked fish - who would want to murder its taste with cream cheese anyway?

    Photos
    St. Lawrence Market
    No  bueno
    No bueno
    Entrance

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    Entrance

    Lox + Schmear - bagels - Updated June 2026

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