But hasn’t got it together, yet
Litli Barinn at Ránargata 4a is a new addition to the downtown Reykjavík scene, located at the hotel Local 101, on the border of Vesturbær and Miðbær. The vibe is familiar for fans of Vínstúkan and Apéro — a wine bar offering simple dishes that straddle the line between wholesome and indulgent. Unfortunately, the results leave a lot to be desired.
Litli Barinn is shooting for the moon, I will give them that. They are not afraid to take chances, which is a welcome attitude in a scene where most are content rolling out yet another basket of wings or a Costco charcuterie platter. No, no, not Litli Barinn, they are going to try to make mayonnaise from cod liver oil because why the hell not (more on “why not” later)? It’s vastly preferable to see chefs taking big swings and miss rather than let their spirits die trotting out old standards and chasing TikTok fads (one more Dubai chocolate dessert on the menu, and I am going to lose it). The prices at Litli Barinn are also well within reason. It’s rare these days that you will find a comparatively filling dish in the 2.500-3.500 ISK range in downtown. The problems at Litli Barinn have to do with the execution. And too much skyr. Way, way too much skyr.
The restaurant doesn’t exactly catch the eye from the outside. It’s wedged in a small space of a tiny hotel that shares the bar and the front desk, and the hotel is tucked away from the main arteries of downtown. It gets a decent amount of natural light on a good day but misses out on great big summer days as the outdoor seating is minimal, which means that Icelanders will skew it for a terrace with Aperol spritzes. The ambience is otherwise quite unremarkable, although I will note the Icelandic music selection which had a pleasant amount of deep cuts (It had been at least a decade since I heard “Atlavík ‘84” by Rúnk, a band whose name translates to “Wank”, which was fronted by Grammy and Oscar winner Hildur Guðna).
There can be too much skyr
On a previous visit, the group I was with had some misgivings about certain dishes, but the consensus was that Litli Barinn had a nice selection of boutique wines and that the house-made lamb sausages with lentils entrée and the marinated tomato appetiser were delicious. But I found myself doubting that experience on a recent visit, as both dishes were significantly less interesting than I had remembered, and the other menu items were far off the mark.
The lamb sausages, which had been so warm and pleasant on my first visit, were overcooked to the point of qualifying as saucisson, served with a couple of imported blueberries on a bed of oversalted and unevenly cooked lentils. The marinated greenhouse cherry tomatoes with roasted almonds and skyr are still nice when scooped up on a slice of “oven-baked” baked (their phrasing) but the tart skyr flavour was quite dominant. The skyr was an even greater offender with the baked sweet potato with grilled walnuts and mounds of crunchy dulse. While I didn’t mind the fishy flavour of dulse, I know I’m in the minority and this should definitely have been noted in the dish description. The main problem was the claggy texture of mushy sweet potato mixed with the mound of skyr. It’s unusual for an Icelandic restaurant to overdo it on the acidity front, but Litli Barinn seems a little too taken with the dairy product.
And too much cod liver oil
Texture issues were also at the forefront with the mac and cheese with Icelandic shrimp. The combination of fishy flavours with shaved Gruyère yielded something that tasted of spoiled fish, and the macaroni and shrimp took on the same appearance under the béchamel so you never knew which texture you would get with each bite.
No dish garnered a stronger reaction from the group, on either visit, than the “local club sandwich” — essentially a club sandwich with the mayonnaise substituted for a type of Caesar dressing made from “lýsi” (Icelandic cod liver oil). Now, I did want to defend this. I even said “hey, that’s not bad” for the first couple of bites, but the intensely briny, pungent, fishy flavour of cod liver oil quickly emerged and made the rest of the sandwich impossible to finish. I can see how the idea came about conceptually — after all we do use anchovies to punch up the umami flavour of marinades, dressings and bread-based dishes. But, for the love of god, please let this be a warning to anyone in the scene, lest they start thinking “what if I just fry these eggs in cod liver oil?” (answer: you will need to move house).
The stand-out were the miso-glazed, slow-cooked onions, which made for a simple but delicious appetiser, although some would baulk at paying 2.600 ISK for a couple of onions in, you guessed it, a puddle of skyr (mental note: start an Icelandic post-grunge cover band).
It gives me little joy to be haranguing a small restaurant like this, and the reason I picked it out for a review was that the first visit had been quite pleasant. The spirit of innovation at Litli Barinn is to be celebrated, and the city could always use more wine bars with a good selection of small bites. But this isn’t coming together at the moment. Had my first visit been a case of mind-over-matter with the right group of friends or was it, like the cod-liver sandwich, a case of the flavours needing more time to catch up with the taste buds to give a full impression? It’s hard to say, but next time I’m giving my taste buds a head start.
Despite the writer’s experience, it’s worth noting that in 2025, Litli Barinn was one of the runners-up in the Best Wine Bar category of the Reykjavík Grapevine’s Best of Reykjavík Awards.
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