Recommended Tours or Restaurants in Reykjavik
Woo. Took a break from blogging this because we did so much on this day!
Anyway, today we joined a walking tour of Reykjavik! We did The Reykjavík Food Walk after seeing it on Instagram tons of times. You're totally welcome to go to each of these restaurants individually, but I don't think you'll get as much value on your own. Our guide did a fantastic job of explaining the history as we walked through the streets, and I'm sure trying each of these foods individually isn't cheap.
HARPA
We met at the HARPA, which is one Reykjavík's better known landmarks. Honestly, I don't think I took a picture of it. Tam did have some pictures, so check it out. If you wanna see more, check the location tab on IG here.
We had a really nice tour guide who gave us a brief history of Iceland as we went to different places around town.
Íslenski Barinn
Lamb Soup
The soup was really good! It was very hearty and flavorful. Definitely could taste the lamb but it wasn't heavy.
First stop. We learned that the lamb stew recipe changes day by day, since the recipes are actually from staff members' grandmothers. Our tour guide shared with us that lamb is a pretty commonly eaten meal for Sunday dinner.
Ostabúðin
We did a couple of salted meat tastings here. We tried dried, aged, and/or salted lamb, goose, and horse. There were also some cheese that were shared. I think it was a cheddar, a blue cheese, and something else. I think the best part of this was this really great raspberry champagne dressing that our guide put it on the dried horse. It's really sweet, but the champagne cuts it and makes it feel... Sparkly in your mouth. As I've said before, I'm terrible at describing food.
This place is a delicatessen and a restaurant. Supposedly, the restaurant used to be the back room of the delicatessen and was considered "Reykjavík's worst kept secret." No one was supposed to know that it was there, but Reykjavík is a small town and word spreads fast. When the spot next door opened up, they were able to purchase it and expand the back room.
I think it's cute because you can go into the Delicatessen and see how it connects to the restaurant that it became next door.
Cafe Loki
The next place we passed was Cafe Loki. It's on the third floor of a building that is right outside Hallgrímskirkja, another famous landmark. The owners of this restaurant are pretty artistic. The husband takes pictures of Hallgrímskirkja during different times of the year. I think the wife painted the mural in the restaurant itself.
Rye Bread Ice Cream
Remember how I said I liked rye bread a couple posts back? Well, it basically was everything I like about rye bread and ice cream separate, but combined! The texture of the rye bread held well in the ice cream, and it wasn't super sweet. It was so good! SO GOOD. Apparently other restaurants have tried to replicate it, but can't. I mean, the creation of the ice cream was already an accident... So could you imagine?
It's basically perfect.
City Stroll
We walked around a few more places... One of them was the Reykjavík City Hall, which is next to a huge pond. While eating some of the Skyr that I mentioned in my first post, she went over how they skate over the pond during the winter.
One of the cool thing about Reykjavík is that they have a lot of street art around. According to our guide, the city commissions local artists to paint over empty spaces as a way to combat graffiti. It's almost like POWWOW International, but also not. Either way, much of the art is super unique and I'm glad we snapped some of our favorites.
Kopar
Next stop was Kopar! It's run by women, one of them was on Iceland's national cooking team for some competition. The view is beautiful here! It has a great view of the water and the mountains. We had Icelandic rock crab soup here. It was really nutty in flavor, and it tasted very similar to panang curry, but was more the consistency of water. It was super hearty. In fact, we liked it so much that we decided to come back for dinner later.
Bæjarins Beztu Pylsur
So all those Icelandic gas station hot dogs culminated into the place that started it all! Apparently President Clinton, the Kardashians, and bunches of people come here because it's that popular. When they began building around it, the city actually required that the buildings accommodate for this, especially since it is considered Iceland's oldest restaurant.
Their hotdogs are special because it's a mixture of lamb, beef, and I think pork. They supposedly boil the hot dogs in beer also. I don't care, it's delicious and crunchy onions are the most inspired thing to put on a hot dog ever!
Funny story. Tam saw a girl taking a picture of her hotdog, and then she dropped it. She and her friend were embarrassed and basically ran away even though no one else except him saw.
Apotek
Last place was called Apotek, which is Icelandic for apothecary. Even though this place isn't one anymore, they kept the name for the sake of tradition.
Dessert
Passion Fruit Mousse
with Yuzu Gel
and Hibiscus Meringue
Exploring Reykjavík
After this, we walked around the city to explore a little more. The main tourist road is Laugavegur, which we hadn't looked at much because of the walking tour. We went into Hallsgrímskirkja, did a little shopping down the main street, and enjoyed sunny weather.
Kopar - Part 2
Anyway, we came back here because the view was beautiful and we were living up the last night in Reykjavík. They had a tasting menu to share so we went for it. It was heard to hear them, so I don't remember what most of it was but you can take a look. I went to their website to look at the menu, and copied/pasted the different items that matched what we ate.
Hello and Goodbye Northern Lights
After dinner, we headed to the lighthouse, where our guide said it would be easiest to see the Northern Lights. It was our last night, so why not. We said hello, and goodbye, to the Northern Lights one more time and then headed off to bed.