Schrödinger’s Hot Dog: A Broke Boy’s Food Tour Of North Iceland

Over the last decade, Iceland has undergone many transformations — but few as striking as the evolution of its culinary landscape. Quality ingredients, innovative cooking, and delicious meals are now much easier to find — and not just in Reykjavik.

One thing that hasn’t changed much, though, are the prices. Let’s face it: eating out in Iceland can be brutally expensive, and not always that rewarding. Now, I’m no food critic; just someone who eats out regularly enough to suffer regular financial headaches. But I’ve learned that it’s possible to eat like royalty here without committing to a month of nothing but Bónus skyr.

The secret lies in having a strategy, or what I call the broke boy’s three-pronged attack plan. Set your sights on one splurge-worthy, unforgettable meal; one solid, hangover-curing feast; one wallet-friendly option to keep you going. Then self-cater accordingly to mitigate the subsequent financial consequences.

In order to demonstrate how this approach can be applied anywhere in the country, I took myself to three unique eateries in North Iceland, each doing inventive, exciting and unconventional things with their menus — all of which you can visit without breaking the bank.

The splurge: North Restaurant

I have been lucky enough to experience a tasting menu perhaps twice in my life. The idea of eating several courses of curated plates and flavours, coupled with wine pairings, speaks deeply to the aspirational gourmand in me. Aspirational, because, well, eating at these kinds of restaurants always seemed like it was for ‘other’ people; better people, richer people — not me and the rest of the grubby-faced kebab class. Similarly, making good food accessible and affordable is something that many restaurants like to talk sweet about, even if they don’t always walk the walk by the time the bill lands.

North Restaurant in Akureyri is not one of those places. It is absolutely, 100 percent the real deal. Opened by Gunnar Karl Gíslason of Dill fame back in 2023, North offers not only one of the most reasonably priced tasting menus in Iceland, but in western Europe. You can expect to pay 15.200 ISK for seven dishes along with petit fours and digestifs, or add wine pairings for an additional 13.300 ISK. For comparison, that’s roughly the amount you’d expect to pay for a three-course meal off the à la carte menu at a large hotel in Reykjavík or Akureyri — without anywhere near the same level of care or attention that head chef Rafn Svansson and his team show at North.

“The end result is a whirlwind of creativity, with flavours that are at once both familiar and novel.”

This is immediately evident the first time you look at the menu. Many of the ingredients come with a name attached: lamb from Ragga, smoked haddock from Elvar, Maria’s fried bread. Here, you’re on first-name terms with the producers of the food you’re eating, and that’s not a mistake. “Before we first opened, I took my time visiting everyone I could around the fjord just to get to know the producers and what they were offering,” explains Rafn. “It has gotten to a point now where we’re pretty well-known to the local producers, and most of them will actually contact us at this point.”

The relationships that North has built with local producers doesn’t just impact the menu, but the price. Take Joe’s lemon sole carpaccio, served with almonds and sorrel. “Joe is one of my best friends — he’s a fisherman and doesn’t really take much money for the fish he provides, just so we can ensure there’s good, sustainable products on the menu,” explains Rafn. “Thanks to the relationships we have with local producers, we can keep the menu at a lower price compared to other restaurants and maintain the full seven courses year-round.”

The end result is a whirlwind of creativity, with flavours that are at once both familiar and novel. That’s not an accident. “When I first saw the space here, I felt it was more like a living room than a restaurant,” explains Rafn. “So I immediately started to focus on creating dishes that Icelandic people might have had at their grandma’s house when they were growing up, finessing them and taking them to the next level — with respect to all grandmothers, of course. People who were born from the 1900s up to early 2000s, especially in smaller villages, were raised on things like smoked haddock, salted cod, fish, lamb. My dad was a hunter, so I grew up eating guillemot or goose every Sunday, or ptarmigan and reindeer at Christmas. Showing people how to cook these ingredients properly and enjoy them really motivates me.”

The palpable regard shown by the team at North, not only for what’s being put in front of you, but the people involved in making it happen, is emblematic of what makes this region of Iceland so special. It somehow manages to remain approachable, accessible, and spectacular all at the same time, and this is borne out in the passion that Rafn and the team have for hosting people there. “I love getting people into North,” says Rafn. “A set menu restaurant like this has never really survived in Akureyri, and I really want locals to appreciate the value of having a restaurant like this in town.”

The hangover cure: Daddi’s Pizza

Pizza is one of those things that’s easy to make, but very hard to master. In Reykjavík, pizza has generally erred towards the New York style — with a few exceptions (e.g. Flatey Pizza, Napoli, Reykjavík Pizzeria). Other pizzas I’ve tried in rural Iceland have been decidedly more, well, Icelandic than anything else. (Shout out to a delicious catastrophe I once sampled in Skagaströnd called the Belly Buster.)

So imagine my surprise when I saw a sign for Daddi’s Pizza on the road near Lake Mývatn, just an hour outside of Akureyri. The fact there’s not only a pizzeria on Mývatn, but a good one, is even more startling. Opened in 2009, the original Daddi’s Pizza is located by Vogar campsite and is gifted with pretty spectacular views of the lake and nearby mountains.

Treading the line between inventiveness and tradition is a fine balance, and it’s something that Daddi’s definitely pushes for with some pretty bold menu options. On the standard menu, adventurous pies peacefully co-exist with the conventional. You could opt for a 12-inch Mybility, a guest favourite that features smoked trout, pine nuts, cream cheese and tomato sauce; or if you’re after something more conservative, there’s an array of old reliable favourites ranging from pepperoni to ham and mushroom. But the real knockouts here are on the chef’s special menu. This typically runs in summer, and this year kicked off with a number of seasonal Easter pizzas like the Brauðrétturinn (Garlic base, cheese, fancy ham, chestnut mushrooms plus asparagus cream cheese) and the Páskamáltíðin (marinated lamb, brie, semi-dried tomatoes, corn, balsamic, and spring onion).

“This chef’s special pizza is possibly the most immaculate fusion of Icelandic and Italian cuisines the world will ever witness.”

However, there’s one choice in particular that must be sampled to be believed: the Lúdent. This chef’s special pizza is possibly the most immaculate fusion of Icelandic and Italian cuisines the world will ever witness, bringing together tender cuts of lamb (roughly one per slice), garlic butter, bearnaise sauce, black pepper, mozzarella and sauce. The result is a buttery tsunami of flavour which nearly blew my socks off. It’s a must-eat if you ever find yourself in Daddi’s house.

Price-wise: Expect to pay between 2.550 ISK and 4.700 ISK for a 12-inch pie depending on the topping, with most options falling in the 3.900-4.150 ISK range. If you’re not that hungry or a bit tight for cash, there’s 9-inch pizzas which come in all the same flavours but for approx. 800 ISK to 900 ISK less. There’s also a menu of party-sized 16-inchers.

The best part is that you don’t have to go to Mývatn to try Daddi’s Pizza. In October, a branch opened on Skipholt in Reykjavik, meaning you could, in theory, order one right now and eat it before you finish reading this magazine. (Do it. Do it!)

The survival snack: Pylsuvagninn á Akureyri

Come to Iceland, eat a hot dog — or so they say. But until you have visited Akureyri, you haven’t eaten a hot dog. Not really.

Here, there are hot dogs you never even thought were possible. At the shallower end of the pool, there’s AK-Inn, a drive-thru joint near the edge of town. Here you can get hot dogs topped with fries, MSG, cheese, and cocktail sauce — something Grapevine food critic Ragnar Egilsson once constituted as “hard proof that you can score decent weed in Akureyri.”

But the top spot of them all is undoubtedly Pylsuvagninn á Akureyri, which slings some of the most diabolical buns ever to grace the earth. This yellow-steel beacon rises from Akureyri high street like an Everest over the Serengeti. Hungry cruise ship tourists gather like Munchkins, bowing and scraping at the doors of the Emerald City, begging the Wizard for just one more taste of magic. Signs warn you: hungry birds! Sure enough, they feast here on the scraps of those too foolish to guard their bounties. Something has awakened a primaeval gluttony in these winged menaces, something strange… something… Other.

The menu gives some clues as to why. Even the gentler entries provoke a “pardon me?”: the Pizza Dog, the Breakfast Dog, the degenerate Swedish-inspired Potato Dog. So far, so good. But Pylsuvagninn á Akureyri does not stop there. It does not ask “what else can we do with hotdogs?”. Instead: “what is a hotdog?”.

“When I asked a staff member if she knew who invented these flavours, she simply replied, “Yeah.” Well, we’re not here to talk.”

I here invoke the abominable Blue Cheese Dog. At 1.100 ISK, this is one of the cheapest, most avant-garde meals you will ever consume, featuring ‘normal’ cheese, blue cheese, rhubarb jam, nuts, remoulade, ketchup, cocktail sauce, mustard and onions. If you don’t fancy that, there’s the Tuna Dog, which doesn’t even contain a sausage, just tuna and feta and salad and the like. When I asked a staff member if she knew who invented these flavours, she simply replied, “Yeah.” Well, we’re not here to talk. We’re here to eat something resembling a hot dog.

I am not a brave man, but nor am I a coward, so I did what any sane Brit would do and made a beeline for the baked bean dawg. It was the closest I got to a taste of my homeland, a brand-new UK-Iceland fusion cuisine in a single brioche bun. After washing that down with some Appelsín, I hit the big-ticket item: the Volcano Dog, a hot dog seemingly so jawdropping it deserves its own sign. It actually turned out to be relatively inoffensive, if ugly: a black bun made of activated charcoal plus jalapenos, sriracha, and all the usual accompaniments.

As I walked away from the hot dog stand and let the mulch of ingredients sink into the depths of my bowels, I experienced a strange new feeling. I don’t have a word for it, but it was like… going home. Home to somewhere I’d never been. I crossed the street and ducked into Kristján’s Bakery, where I saw 25 giant cinnamon rolls completely coated in chocolate and caramel. The girl behind the counter asked me if I wanted one; 510 ISK. I looked in my wallet. Exact change.