Words by

Ragnar Egilsson

Photo by

Supplied

A new turf on the old Turf

There is no dearth of restaurants in Reykjavík reimagining Icelandic ingredients or deconstructing Iceland’s culinary heritage with foraged ingredients and a sprinkling of seaweed. Torfan is located at Amtmannsstígur 1, which was briefly the home of the national romantic poet Hannes Hafsteinn and has housed a restaurant under the name of Torfan for nearly half a century. But the menu isn’t lost in ushering that heritage through sieves of deconstructions or hiding it under mounds of dried seaweed — rather, Torfan, gives a warm and unpretentious welcome of “hvasegirrugott?” 

A house of past lives and new beginnings 

Torfan is the kind of restaurant that wants to seduce both your palate and your inner romantic. It’s a vibe of classic Danish “historical hygge” — but with a kitchen that’s fixed on the present. 

Opened in April 2025 by restaurateurs Nik and Indrek, the crew at Torfan have their roots in fine dining and a deep reverence for Nordic produce — and it shows. They have refocussed on the ingredients, expanding the selection of vegetarian dishes, and they’ve definitely landed on something that feels modern without being flashy or over-conceptualised. 

Stepping into Torfan feels like entering a portal to simultaneous time periods. The décor is mostly in tune with the building’s 19th-century origins, minimalist but with some antique flourishes. But then there is also the large whale mural on the ceiling and the rotating selection of 90s Icelandic pop hits (specifically: “sveitaballatónlist”). I half expected a 19th-century poet to shuffle across the creaking wooden floors doing the Macarena and shaking up an appletini. 

But it’s the food that anchors the whole experience.

Lapland moose and you-can’t-believe-it’s-not-fish 

We kicked off the meal with a mushroom toast, which consisted of shiitake, chanterelles and oyster mushrooms that had been given the confit treatment and kicked up with a splash of pumpkin seed oil. A delicious, vegan offering that was bursting with flavour and one of many that seem to blend traditional Nordic recipes with Croatian or Baltic touches. At least, I don’t remember seeing a drop of pumpkin seed oil on Icelandic menus prior to the migration of culinary talent from the eastern part of Europe. This melting pot continues with the mostly Faroese selection of beers mixed with a tidy wine list, focused on low-intervention European wines from outside of the “big four” wine countries. We opted for an affordable and able-bodied bottle of Croatian red, which held up well to the moose entrecôte to come. 

The halibut soup with raisins and apples is as traditional as it gets, the recipe going back at least as far as “Nýja matreiðslubókin” from the 1950s. Here the raisins were substituted for prunes, but otherwise it was the usual, creamy, sweet-and-salty concoction I know and love, served with plenty of wholewheat bread and butter.

The second soup was the mixed seafood bouillabaisse, which was deceptively filling despite the seemingly small portion, with potatoes, mussels and scallops swimming in a creamy broth. Given their focus on Icelandic ingredients, I could have done without the jumbo shrimp, which I highly doubt came from an Icelandic fishing vessel. Could have used a little more flourish but a tasty soup nonetheless. 

On the meatier side of life, the moose entrecôte was a slab of game caught in the wilds of Lapland, served with a (very) buttery, cold celeriac purée and roasted root veggies. The dish was surprisingly delicate, well-seasoned and only mildly gamey. It felt like the kind of dish you would expect to eat while high on fly agaric reindeer piss in a moss-covered patch of pine forest while debating whether to upgrade to a 2025 Lynx snowmobile.  

For those who want to avoid the blood and guts, Torfan has interesting vegan and vegetarian offerings, which includes their “Not a Fish Stew ‘Plokkfiskur’” which is a nod to the classic Icelandic fish stew “plokkfiskur”, with tofu and seaweed standing in for the haddock or cod. 

Verdict: A sigh of comfort 

Torfan is moderately priced for a restaurant in its category in Iceland (which still means it’s no picnic on the wallet), which makes a good choice for a date night or a Tuesday that needs turning around. It’s a restaurant that is comfortably divided between different time periods and cuisines and provides a refreshingly honest and unpretentious take on Icelandic ingredients. There’s no industrial-chic aesthetic, truffle foams or DJs spinning house music in the corner — just dependable European classics given a fresh coat of paint. In a city where ambition can drown out substance, Torfan is a breath of fresh, salt-tinged air.