Author: Haukur Már Helgason
Oh No! It’s the Radiophonic Paramilitaries
Regardless of whether cinema used to be truth 24 times per second or lies at the same rate, it is…
The End of Neo-Liberal Neverland
The Meaning of Success ‘How to succeed in Modern Business: Lessons from the Icelandic Voyage’ is the title of an…
Salt
Described as “chic, upscale and casual” on its website, the hotel restaurant, Salt, actually is. Each table is decorated with…
The Violent Outburst of Graphic Design
Liberal economist Thorvaldur Gylfason recently mentioned that once upon a time, and until quite late, history had been saturated with…
Come, Thou Divine Mistake!:
Despite its name, Verslunarmannahelgin, Merchants’ weekend, is not really like Christmas. It dates back to around 1900 as a benevolent…
IT BEGINS WITH A RESIGNATION:
The dining dead. It’s a phrase I heard in a movie. A young man looked at his girlfriend as they…
REYKJAVÍK BAGEL COMPANY
Now, then. To finish the reviews, quite shortly: There was the bagel place. It does serve fine bagels, in a…
Á NÆSTU GRÖSUM
Then there was that splendid vegetarian restaurant. Á næstu grösum, it’s called. Probably this place is everything that world weary…
TVEIR FISKAR
And finally, the exquisite Tveir fiskar, the expensive one, this week, where everybody seemed to be speaking French. Great fish….
Spielberg Gets Subversive
I will make this short: This is not a film about September 11. Now, one might certainly lean towards that…
pasta basta
Why would a place called Pasta Basta try to de-ehmphasize its Italian background and place fish and steak in the…
Bezt í Heimi:Ostabúðin
Bookstore employees in the city centre complain about the bothersome tourists that bump in from the rain, one after the…
Apótek
Suddenly I realized what it looked and felt like: An airport! More specifically: Any airport or even: the any airport….
Benign Carelessness
Are you a better director now than when you made Nói Albinói? No, not really. The period between takes is…
SALT,Hotel 1919
Described as “chic, upscale and casual” on its website, the hotel restaurant, Salt, actually is. Each table is decorated with…
Hrói Höttur
This cheesy fast-food pizzeria offers a no-nonsense buffet, soup, steak, pizza, vegetables, pasta courses … the whole lot – English-Italian…
Maru
It seems to be common practice when one restaurant files for bankruptcy to start another one in its place. In…
The Grapevine Presents A Spoken Word Creation Written for, But Not Performed by, the President of Iceland During the 61st Celebration of Iceland’s Independence, at Austurvöllur, Reykjavík, June 17th 2005.
Fellow citizens. It was on a rainy day 61 years ago that the youthful visionaries of an old nation came…
Dark Horse: Boy Meets Girl Raises the Stakes in Icelandic Cinema
Boy meets girl. How liberating can the formula be in 2005? Very. The film, titled Voksne mannesker in Danish (Grown-up…
RAUÐARÁ STEAKHOUSE
Heavily romantic. Huge candlesticks. Accompanied by my sister, we were quite pleased, after a drink in the upstairs parlour, to…
the bagel house
The Bagel House only arrived on Laugavegur two or three weeks ago. They serve bagels. The bagels are good, the…
el racó
El Racó is a new Mexican place by Tryggvagata, where there used to be a … Mexican place. Unfortunately my…
Sound of Money
Description: 1) Four or five separate spaces in one house are all filled with painful noises of fish factories, reproduced…
HUMARHÚSIÐ
“I saw your turnover, going to Cuba in the autumn?” “Well, you don’t jump around just anywhere, if Icelandair doesn’t…
ELDSMIÐJAN
Eldsmiðjan was one of the country’s first pizzerias, a sensation when it opened 18 years ago in the city centre….