The "Boucherie Atlantique"
German Traces in Montreal

A German-Austrian butcher

Located on the western slope of Mont-Royal in the geographical centre of the city, the Austrian-German butchery “Boucherie Atlantique” is one of Montreal’s unmissable locales for all lovers of German food and products. It was acquired in 1962 by the German-Austrian couple Wolfgang and Herta Lustig.

A trained butcher from Baden-Baden in the Black Forest, Wolfgang met his future wife Herta, of Austrian descent, during a yearlong stay in Canada. That one year has since stretched to more than 50 years. During that time, he ran his successful, well-loved delicatessen together with his wife, who died in 2017. The family business’s team also includes his son Werner, who is the delicatessen’s butcher, and his daughter Birgit, who was educated in hospitality at a college of hotel management in Bad Ischl, Austria. There, Birgit met her future husband Gerald Voegel, originally from Bregenz, also in Austria. Today, he works as the chef at Boucherie Atlantique and is responsible for the wide variety of salads and lunch dishes on offer. Gerald talks with pride about the times when all three generations of the family can be found together hard at work at the business, which is particularly common on their busy Saturdays. On these days, Gerald and Birgit’s two children, Melanie and Alexander – both students at Concordia University – also come by and help out with work.
 
The delicatessen, simply called “Atlantique” by the regulars, is located in the middle of the Côte-des-Neiges neighbourhood, one of the most multicultural neighbourhoods in Montreal. It is visited day in and day out by people of a variety of backgrounds because of its typical Central European products. Customers come for the high quality and diversity of the exotic products, and they can vary from Central European immigrants searching nostalgically for the taste of their mother’s cooking from their childhood, to Anglophone university students standing in line for the delicatessen’s tasty sausage rolls, to Quebec family men wanting to prepare original German "Sauerkraut" or Swabian "Spätzle" (German egg noodles) for their friends. Other features that attract customers include the offer of good, plain, traditional cooking, as well as the pleasant atmosphere inside the store.
 
There are no products in stock at Atlantique that wouldn’t be familiar to a tourist from central Europe, and customers can shop not only in French or English, but also in German. The whole range of German and Austro-Hungarian cuisine is available, from "Rindsroulade" (a slice of beef rolled around a savoury filling) to "Kassler" (smoked pork loin) to "Leberkäse" (a type of German meatloaf) to goulash. Sausage varieties include "Bauernmettwurst" (a type of salami), "Nürnberg bratwurst", and the hearty debrecener sausage (a pork sausage with paprika and other flavourings). The herring filet in crème sauce with its inimitable flavour is particularly tempting. There’s also no shortage of sweets – all the classics can be found at Atlantique, such as apple strudel or plum streusel cake, to name a few. In winter, Christmas baked goods like "Dresdner Christstollen" (a kind of bread-like fruitcake from Dresden), "Lebkuchen" (soft German gingerbread), and "Zimtsterne" (iced cinnamon star biscuits), are a real treat, especially for those who grew up in that culinary world. Customers who come from other cultural backgrounds also love it here, and they can discover new, unimagined worlds of flavours in their exploration of Atlantique.

The “Boucherie Atlantique” is undoubtedly popular among lots of people! 

Boucherie Atlantique
5060 Côte-des-Neiges
Montréal, QC, H3V 1G6
Website