While Iceland boasts the most profitable Dominos and the largest Kentucky Fried Chicken in Europe, the local versions of fast food sometimes outdo the more uniform imports. For a very tasty case in point, take Chester Fried Chicken, available at the deli counter in the back of Nóatún—the local mid-grade grocery store
Talking about Chester Fried brings smiles from locals who were raised in the area: “They just do it wrong. How is it so crunchy—there’s a layer of crunch on it thicker than the chicken,” one local whose father used to deliver the family a large box of chicken on Wednesdays on the way home from work.
But nobody should be ashamed of this chicken: the pieces are enormous, and, yes, the fry is also massive, but it also tastes faintly of buttermilk. When combined with another Icelandic anomaly, Egils Appelsín, the local take on orange soda with an outrageously high sugar content, you get an exceptionally unhealthy and enjoyable dining experience.
The fine people at Nóatún sell the fried chicken by the piece, or in enormous family meals, which include ten pieces of chicken, two litres of the orange stuff or whatever soda you like, salad and French fries for 2,990 ISK.
Chester Fried Chicken at
Nóatún. Hringbraut 121. 107
Reykjavík. Phone: 585-7150.
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