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 surrounded by eager customers sitting at tables and chairs brought out to enjoy a few rays of sunlight. During wintertime, you’d still be lucky to get a table at peak hours. It was a logical move for them to buy out an adjacent kiosk and expand into it as part of their most recent renovations. We decided to check out the new look and the new menu.
Said menu turned out to be quite extensive, providing everything from sandwiches, crépes and cheese platters to quiche, steak, pasta and risotto. For starters we tried two of the three varieties of self-serve soup, tomato and creamy vegetable, and both were excellent. The bread, both the regular free kind and the garlic bread we ordered on the side, was very standard fare, but definitely fresh. The main courses were a steak and an extremely generous looking platter of pasta with lobster and white wine sauce. At less than two thousand krónur a piece, both choices represented very good value for money and went down pleasantly.
For dessert you have the choice between several types of cakes and gelatos. While we had both become too full to indulge on this occasion, I know from previous experience that their apple pie is quite good and the gelato is nice and creamy. You might also want to try the traditional Icelandic kleina for something a little different from standard dessert fare though I can’t vouch for its quality.
While you can’t expect the best meat or the most skillfully prepared lobster in the world when you go to a bistro, Café París provides such dishes unpretentiously and at a competitive price in a comfortable environment. You may not be wow-ed by the experience, but you shouldn’t be disappointed either.