Reykjavik eats

We had a few dinners and brunches in Reykjavik, so if you are interested in some tips then this might be useful.

Let’s start with the star of the show. Find your way to Skal! in the foodhall at the end of Laugavelar. It’s mostly counter dining, and small plates. But they are veeeery good, a match for a lot of good stuff in London. The stand-out dish was a beautifully chargrilled piece of arctic char. This fish is ubiquitous in Iceland, but in five attempts we never had a piece treated as excellently as this. They are serious about their drinks too. All natural wines, and really a bit on the rustic side. Much better are the cocktails, including some great house inventions with a real enthusiast’s cornucopia of strange syrups, ferments and shrubs. Lovage daquiri was superb.

At the other end of the spectrum, Matur ad Drykkur boasts a six course tasting menu and plenty of strong reviews, but to my thinking it’s mutton dressed as lamb. Everything is achingly hipster. The “two starters” were two canapes really, a nibble of cured arctic char and another of cured lamb. Then some tempura seaweed, a chewy green strip in oily batter with soy sauce to dip. Halibut soup was a creamy affair, elegant enough and well made. The sea bass main was a nice enough bit of fish with a good celeriac mash. Two desserts bizarrely came together and were typical ice cream & sorbet splodges with forms of granola on top as a lazy kind of “texture”.

Grillmarket was somewhere in the middle. It’s a big barn that slurps up a lot of tourists, but the meat-heavy fare is at least flavoursome and well executed. Full disclosure: they do a mean jalapeno margarita that we guzzled extensively. So we were inclined to be happy! The food isn’t bad at all, but no better than the better kind of chain restaurant would put out.

Let’s end with a breakfast treat! Creme brulee doughnuts at the DEIG bakery towards the harbour. The doughnut and filling were splendid, but crowned by the brulee topping – they blowtorch the sugar coating right in front of you and it certainly had a great bitter-toffee crunch.

And just to avoid your disappointment. The “world famous” Bæjarins Beztu Pylsur hotdogs are a perfectly good snack for about £3 but really, don’t expect fireworks. It’s just a jolly good cheap hotdog.