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Open Your Window To The Drama
Living in downtown Reykjavík has its drawbacks. A lot of people who live in the area never get tired of complaining about the noise from drunkards on weekends and the constant shuffling of Airbnb patrons in the early hours, on all days…
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Discovery Of Naivist Fakes Stokes Fears Of New Art World Scandal
A few years ago, there were alarming international headlines based on interviews with Swiss investigators who found that over 70% of the artworks they authenticated were forgeries or misattributions. This turned out to be at least a slight exaggeration—many of the works…
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Judge, Jury And Executive: How Our Former Justice Minister Inadvertently Ended Her Post
Iceland got a new justice minister this month, after a dramatic ruling by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) found former justice minister Sigríður Á. Andersen had illegally appointed judges to the Icelandic Court of Appeals. The finding casts into question…
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VIDEO: Geothermal Heating Versus Cold Weather Sparks Brief Crisis
Iceland is often celebrated for its prodigious use of geothermal power. Apart from providing over a quarter of the national output of electricity (hydropower provides the rest) almost all Icelandic homes are heated with geothermally warmed water that passes through a vast…
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#MeToo, And Then What? Iceland Explores The Tough Questions Of A Legal Grey Area
At 13:21 on October 15th, 2017, the worldwide dialogue surrounding rape, sexual assault, and sexual harassment abruptly and irrevocably changed. With one 86 character tweet, sent out by actress Alyssa Milano, a firestorm erupted that has left in its wake careers, reputations,…
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Sjávarkjallarinn
Sjávarkjallarinn roughly translates to “the sea cellar”, but don’t let the name fool you – this isn’t a hangout for drunken sailors but surely one of the finest seafood restaurants in Reykjavík. Their two celebrated chefs have each won the ‘Icelandic Chef…
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Rossopomodoro
Rossopomodoro is a chain restaurant with a difference. There may be more than one of them around the world, actually most are in Italy itself, but the cuisine on offer is of a notably higher class than one generally expects from a…
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Hornið
Hornið, which literally means ‘the corner’, is an old haunt of the Grapevine staff. Our offices used to be located directly above them, but it wasn’t just the convenience that attracted us to the place. Hornið has been operated by the same…
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Argentína steakhouse
Steakhouses generally aren’t considered exclusive or fancy, but Argentína isn’t afraid to buck that trend. When it first opened in 1989, the restaurant immediately earned a reputation as an institution of fine dining, one that it has maintained to this day. Granted,…
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Café Ópera
When reviewing a restaurant for the first time it’s hard to know what to expect. In the case of Café Ópera, which has been a fixture of the downtown dining circuit for years, it felt odd to have never ventured inside before.…
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Follow This Cab
“I’ve seen a lot of things,” Hafliði, taxi driver for BSR tells me. “Adultery, drugs, drunkenness, more adultery. People don’t seem to care what a taxi driver sees or hears, and if they are well behaved we are generally happy to ignore…
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Café Róma
If ever there was a place designed for taking a lunchbreak, it’s Café Róma. Located at the top of Laugarvegur, this bakery-cum-cafe seems eerily sleepy and well stocked in the mornings. The first time I was there at noon I realized why…
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Ítalía
It’s a bit odd to write a restaurant review about a place you have been frequenting for over a decade, so this isn’t going to be a walk through an evening of exploring a strange menu and assessing the decor. No, we…
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Café Oliver
Café Oliver is an establishment that is perhaps best known for its place in the Icelandic nightlife. At night time it’s brimming with drunk, muscular young men with bleached hair – and the women who love them. It leads a double life,…
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World of Warcraft
Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games may be one of the clumsiest phrases to be coined in the last century, but at least it abbreviates fairly readily to MMORPG. The concept is basically the same as a role playing game, where you…
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Imagine No Star Trek and No Religion Too
Brannon Braga has been a part of the creative team behind Star Trek for fifteen years and is responsible for writing several highly acclaimed episodes, such as the award- winning Next Generation finale, All Good Things. More recently he co-created and produced…
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Put Down The Drink and Step Away From The Clown
I’ve always wanted to open one of these pieces with the words: “I had a strange encounter with a clown the other day…” – and now I’ve blown my only chance. The truth is, that clown gave quite a lot to think…
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Optical Mouse
If you have ever hurled a mouse across the room in frustration after hours of careful tweezing and poking at its innards solved nothing and only caused additional problems – you’re not alone. Apart from psychotic vivisectionists, your pain is shared by…
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The Regressive Party
Halldór Ásgrímsson is a relatively rare breed of career politician. Having had a seat in parliament since 1974, he is currently the country’s longest serving MP and an institution within the Progressive Party. He became vice chairman of the party in 1980,…
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TV Satellite Dish
Tired of being a media conglomerate’s bitch? Out of lubricant? You might want to check out some of the options available to you via satellite. They range from legal, to semi-legal to we’d-never-suggest-it, depending on what exactly you are after. If the…
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Apótek
Located on the corner of Austurstræti and Pósthússtræti, Apótek restaurant draws its name from a pharmacy that previously occupied the ground level of the building for over 70 years. The restaurant’s interior blends a modern and minimalistic look with the older, more…
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Café Paris
The ideally located Café París has been one of the most consistently packed cafés/bistros in Reykjavík in recent years. On sunny days especially, and that term is extremely flexible here as I’m sure most visitors have noticed, the place is almost always…
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Sjávarkjallarinn
Sjávarkjallarinn roughly translates to “the sea cellar”, but don’t let the name fool you – this isn’t a hangout for drunken sailors but surely one of the finest seafood restaurants in Reykjavík. Their two celebrated chefs have each won the ‘Icelandic Chef…
