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Art Being Consumed At The Grapevine Office This Week
We’d be preaching from an ivory tower if we didn’t have boots on the ground, ingesting and processing the cultural events we love to tell you about. This week, we’ve got two theatre and one concert review in stock. For aspiring theatre-lovers,…
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A Culinary Comeback (Kinda) — At six, Mat Bar Remains Hard To Slot
I distinctly remember when Mat Bar first opened. The Hverfisgata corner had been a buzz of activity and, even with the windows still shrouded in paper, the place held promise of exciting newness. Now six years old, much has changed at the…
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Gear Up For Battle, Card Game Style
Collectible card games (CCG) are pretty hot right now in the world of video games, as the usually-tabletop medium has made its way into the digital world. So it was fairly exciting to hear the news that 1939 Games, founded by Guðmundur…
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Election Campainful: A Serious Review Of Election Campaign Videos
With only a month to go before municipal elections and a plethora of problems to solve, political parties scramble to rescue Reykjavík from the clutches of the bad guys currently in charge. They claim that yes, they can make all our problems…
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The Next ‘Case’: Icelandic TV Keeps The Scandi-Noir Hits Coming
The second series of Icelandic courtroom drama ‘Réttur’ ended in 2010, with quite a cliffhanger: a lawyer is on a hunting trip with an eccentric client, who picks up his rifle and announces that he’s always wanted to take aim at the…
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Nordic Italian: Buenissimo Italsk “Mat” at Mat Bar
One of the highlights of a small food market in Reykjavík last Christmas was a pop-up Italian bar. It flabbergasted us visitors with dried olives and smoked almonds that we ate by the fistful, leaving us thoroughly intrigued. Now, that little pop-up…
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Rok Review: A Big-Ass Celery Near Everyone’s Favourite Church
Rok is a beautiful building. It’s understated and unobtrusive, and its architecture references the turf-roofed houses that once dominated Iceland, done in a contemporary style. The interior is similarly a nice balance of sharper geometric forms and softer, organic materials. And you…
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Women Steal The Show At The Reykjavík Folk Festival
Folk music is defined as music of the common people, which, in this day and age, is essentially all music…other than Queen Bey of course. This is why folk music is so difficult to describe, because its original definition has no relevance…
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2016: The Year In News
We all had a nice year, right? Even though there are plenty of people happy to see this year come to an end, not all the news of the past year was necessarily bad. Political upheaval was a dominant theme in Iceland,…
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Let Them Eat Lobster & Stuff
It’s technically langoustine, not lobster, but Langoustine & Stuff doesn’t sound right. It misses the fricative soft rhyme of “ster” and “stuff.” That’s the type of linguistic gymnastics marketing wordsmiths simply die for–and, if their product is a living creature, it’s what…
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Something For Everyone: Bike Cave
Located in the Skerjafjörður neighbourhood behind the domestic airport, the Bike Cave is somewhat out of the way for travellers and locals alike. However, given its fleet of rental scooters—parked jauntily outside like Harleys in front of a leather bar—and its proximity…
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Do Not Praise That POS Bjartur: Independent People, Reviewed
Six decades ago this year, Halldór Laxness was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature “for his vivid epic power which has renewed the great narrative art of Iceland.” Having just read ‘Independent People’—Laxness’ most celebrated work; largely the reason for the honour—it’s…
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A Boy Becomes Less Of A Boy In Rúnar Rúnarsson’s Sparrows
Much buzz surrounded the Reykjavík International Film Festival premiere of ‘Sparrows’ (‘Þrestir’), director Rúnar Rúnarsson’s second feature film. It begins as a classic coming-of-age story, focusing on 16-year-old Ari (Atli Óskar Fjalarsson) as he struggles with being uprooted from his life in…
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Swan Lake Without The Swan Song
On November 14 and 15, the St. Petersburg Festival Ballet teamed up with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra to stage a spectacular performance of ‘Swan Lake’. Filled with exciting sets and costumes, beautiful ballerinas and danseurs, and fantastic music, it was really a…
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Food Review: Bergsson Is A Place To Enjoy, Slowly
While not the first of its kind in Reykjavík, the appearance of Bergsson Mathús clearly signalled the arrival of something different—a shift in Icelanders’ food culture. Essentially a breakfast and lunch spot, which also serves terrific brunch during weekends, Bergsson places great…
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Best Place To Babysit And Get A Buzz On: Laundromat Reviewed
The term “family restaurant” usually connotes low quality food, but especially patient staff. Laundromat Café doesn’t use the term in its advertising; however, it manages to be an idealized version of such a place, with good quality food and a broader definition…
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The Kings Of Mediocre, Workmanlike Arena Rock
I used to love them. Kings of Leon and I go way back. I first saw the band play in Sweden in July of 2003, only a week before their first LP, ‘Youth & Young Manhood’, hit the shelves. It was at…
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Cruising At Caruso
My gay-for-pay date for the evening was looking very happy with his meal. His manly physique was wrapped in an Entombed t-shirt and his muscular fingers tapped away in preparation for an upcoming issue of the very magazine you hold betwixt your…
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Rökrétt Framhald
On Grísalappalísa’s debut album ‘Ali’, there’s a line in “Lóan er komin” where singer Baldur Baldursson growls, “Thoroughly thought out/Much practiced/Stolen from here or there/Don’t expect that I take responsibility or remember where it came from” (translation mine). As a lyric-asM.O., it…
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Laminated Menus, Hits And Misses
Primo is a relatively recent addition to the Reykjavík downtown restaurant scene, although it used to operate as somewhat of an Italian fast food take-away restaurant (pizza being its forte) in the suburbs not too long ago. Having acquired one of the…
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Casa Grande: Go Big Or Go Home
Located in a red corrugated iron house overlooking the old harbour, Casa Grande is situated smack-dab in the middle of one of the city’s tourist hubs—whale watching tours, an IcelandAir Hotel—and yet, when we arrived, there wasn’t much Gore-Tex on display. Sure,…
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Matur Og Drykkur: Whole Cod Heads And Licorice Pancakes
If you have your heart set on traditional Icelandic food with some creative flourishes, then there are three places worth exploring. In the lowest budget tier (still not all that low, this is Iceland we’re talking about), we have Café Loki serving…
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Innipúkinn: Inner Demons And Outdoor Fan Service
With twenty-seven acts performing over the course of three nights in two venues, it was assured that you couldn’t see everything at Innipúkinn, even though you might want to. Since the rest of the city seemed hell-bent on getting out—barbecuing, communing with…