Drinking and Dining in Reykjavik

Iceland is known as being a very expensive place to eat and drink, and at the trendy places it certainly was. But for every see-and-be-seen upmarket restaurant, there were plenty of more affordable, but still delicious options. Here are our favorites:

Icelandic Fish and Chips
It’s tasty, it’s inexpensive, and it’s actually healthy! Icelandic Fish and Chips is a semi-self-service place (you place you order at the bar, get your own utensils and water, they serve the rest at your table) that offers a rotating selection of incredibly fresh fish, like cod, wolf fish and haddock, that is fried in a spelt and barley batter (also available baked). For around 900 kronur you get 2-3 fairly big pieces that are enough to share if you add in an order of chips (fries) that are baked, not fried, for 450 kronur. Deep fried veggies and salads are also available. The entrees come with dips called skyronnaise – made with the super healthy low-fat Icelandic yogurt skyr – that come in a variety of flavors like honey mustard, ginger wasabi, tartar and mango.


Beer here was among the cheapest we saw as well, with bottles of the delicious Kaldi going for 500 kronur. We ate here twice, both times splitting some amazingly light and flaky fried fish, chips, and the dip sampler for under 2600 kronur (around $24 with the exchange rate).

Tapas Barinn
We went to Iceland and had tapas? Yes we did, because in addition to offering a few Spanish traditions like patatas bravas, this place also has an immense selection of Icelandic specialties and tons of seafood. Portions were small, of course, but so were the prices. No single dish was over 1000 kronur (roughly $10) so it’s a great place to come to try some of the more daunting Icelandic dishes like puffin and whale (both delicious by the way – whale looks and tastes like steak!) without committing to a whole pricey entrée. Wine was also on the cheaper side here. At every other restaurant, the cheapest bottles of wine I saw were around 4500 kronur. Here they offered several bottles of house wine for 4000 kronur as well as a very tasty pitcher of sangria for 2990 kronur. We ate here twice as well, sampling a huge variety of dishes and having drinks, and never paid more than 6000 kronur. The wait was around 40 minutes on weekends, so make reservations.

Puffin in Brennevin sauce

Whale

Eld Smidjan
Icelanders love their pizza and there are a ton of places to get it, but we liked this place the best. The pies were reasonably priced, they had a great selection, and the pizzas were delicious. We shared a small proscuitto, arugula and cheese pizza and a small cheese bread for 1500 kr and had enough to take home and eat for lunch the next day.


Bæjarins Beztu Pylsur


The name translates to “the best hot dog in town” and it really is. We waited until Friday night, post runtour (pub crawl) to sample one. We joined the line and tried to figure out just what was on these things. Turns out it’s raw and fried onions, remoulade, some kind of gravy-like sauce, ketchup and mustard on a lamb dog. Dan got one with everything and I got one with everything but onions. They were so good we got right back in line and got another to share. We went back the next day to have one to cure our hangover and then had one last one Sunday for lunch before we left. The hot dogs are 250 kronur each so get two. . . or three.



We made a large baguette sandwich at Olivers & Co. one day to take with us on a tour and the guesthouse we stayed at had a kitchen so we cooked in a few nights and munched some snacks for lunch a few times.

We ate the provided breakfast each day and had bought some alcohol at the duty free to drink in our room. We did try to have one “splurge” night, but it was Food and Fun Week – kind of like Restaurant Week in Chicago or NYC – and most of the nicer places were only offering a 6400 kronur prix-fix. We tried several places and weren’t enticed by the menus so we gave up on that. We also ate a place called Vegemot where we shared a 2700 kronur monkfish plate that was good but not amazing. The restaurant was a bit too much of a “scene”. We also checked out the famous "Ice Bar" and were not impressed.

It was 3000 kr. for the two of us to go in, which included one drink. We opted not to do it.

The only night we had a significant number of drinks was on Friday for the big runtuor. We headed out around 11pm and, as promised, found that the clubs (many of which were cafés and restaurants just hours before) were packed with smartly-dressed revelers dancing and drinking.

We stopped at B5 for a drink and then moved on to an un-named place down the street. From there we went on to Thorvaldsen, pausing to watch the frugal partiers drinking on the street before entering the clubs, and then headed back to B5, where we stayed drinking until almost 5am.

When we return to Iceland, hopefully soon, we won't be doing so many excursions and won't be in such a money crunch. We're looking forward to eating at more of Reykjavik's many restaurants - which, it turns out, aren't really that expensive after all.