Like any great drug in history, coffee thoroughly entwines itself in the addict’s life.  It is not just about the act of drinking but the entire culture around it. Coffee pries one’s eyes open in the morning, offers an excuse to meet…

I like coffee and Reykjavík is a nice place to drink it. For a town of its size, there are plenty of coffee shops, and the quality of coffee is generally good. You rarely get the really nasty stuff: espresso that you…

Gunnar Karl Gíslason, chef and vocal advocate for Nordic food, and Ólafur Örn Ólafsson, president of the sommelier association—both colleagues from  previous employer VOX—set out to reinvent the Nordic House eating area, from dingy cafeteria to sophisticated venue for seasonal, local and…

In a small-ish cellar by Lækjagata, you’ll find newly opened Italian restaurant Pisa. The interior is roughly unaltered from the cellar’s previous life as a café. No fancy revamp by the expensive designers. Today, this seems only logical. For starters we were…

The last time I had the pleasure of dining at Hotel Holt, it was for their classical French cuisine lunch special – three great courses, impeccably served, priced cheap. Certainly no objections there. So when I was asked to try out their…

From what the name implies, restaurant Basil & Lime could well have a menu of Italian meets South-East Asian fusion cooking, or similar. In spite of that, we were greeted with a simple and well layed-out menu of authentic Italian dishes. This…

The Scandinavian and its modern interpretation of traditional Nordic recipes are bound to become a small tourist haven, not to exclude the locals, who will appreciate the cuisine served with a bit of heritage. The decor is quite similar to its sister…

Julefrukost, or Christmas buffet, is an old Scandinavian Christmas tradition that has grown very popular in Iceland in recent decades. In the old days, before Christmas became a celebration of consumerism, the extended family would gather to feast on every conceivable (or…

An alternative restaurant every Saturday between 1pm and 5pm would be “Make food not Bombs” which for the past few weeks, in conjunction with the parliamentary protests, has been called “Make Food not Governments.” The group is an ever-changing political demonstration, depending…

The restaurant Einar Ben is named after one of Iceland’s national heroes, the early 20th century poet and entrepreneur Einar Benediktsson, who once lived in the house where the restaurant is now located, and ran the first Icelandic newspaper and later a…

I have to say that when I entered the delicately decorated and cool bistro Brons, I didn’t suspect at all the kind of feast I had coming. For many years, the premises housed one of Iceland’s most cherished café, Kaffibrennslan, but some…

Thorvaldsen has divided its new menu up into the four points of the compass, which in theory is a nice idea but in reality turned out to be a shocker. The north section includes a Nordic perspective, including my smoked salmon starter.…

Until now, Boston has been known as a staple of Reykjavik nightlife. The bar is kept busy on most nights as people pile in from the cold.  And while the atmosphere is cozy and mellow during the early hours of the evening…

Af lífi og sál is located in a cosy port just off of Laugavegur. The restaurant itself is on two floors, with a balcony on the second floor overlooking the port. The interior is simple and relaxing and together with the enjoyable…

Nineteen floors up in the air is high enough so that you have to pop your ears on the elevator trip down again. You should try it sometime. The lunch restaurant 19. hæðin, located on the 19th floor of the Smáratorg tower…

Rub23, the brainchild of Einar Geirsson, is an Umi restaurant situated in the heart of Akureyri. Einar came up with the idea when ‘both awake and dreaming’ of being able to mix different types of fish and meat with selected ‘rubs’ or…

If you’re walking down Laugavegur, it’s hard to miss B5 – the restaurant with the life-sized horse statue in the window accompanied by a DJ turntable and, depending on the time of day, lots of well-dressed people dancing and drinking.    The place…

The most positive part of the Rauðará experience is not really the food itself, but the positively comfortable settings it is served in. Located inside an old brewery where beer was manufactured during the Great Icelandic Beer Prohibition of the last century,…

It may be a very British thing to grab a lager, a curry and then head to a football match. However, an Indian restaurant in Iceland feels like home away from home, because Indian food is second to none in the UK.…

It’s always a good sign when you walk into a restaurant and see an equal mix of locals and tourists.  This was exactly what I saw when I went to Hressingarskálinn, on Austurstræti, for what I was hoping to be a satisfying…

Grapevine met with two local chefs – Hrefna Rósa Jóhannsdóttir Sætran, owner of the restaurant Fish Market on Aðalstræti, and Stefán Úlfarsson, from the family-run 3 Frakkar, on Baldursgata to sample their approach to contemporary Icelandic cuisine. Stefán also provided us with…