Monday in Iceland: foodie tour

We had arranged a foodie tour with Wake Up Reykjavik, who were delightful in email communications and who also booked two restaurant reservations on our behalf.

Our guide was the lovely Gabriela, who was friendly, enthusiastic and knowledgeable about Iceland, food and all sorts of information on culture and mythology.

Our first stop was Íslenski Barinn, a cosy bar that serves lots of different Icelandic beers and also traditional Icelandic food. Here we were given lamb stew (there's a lot of lamb in Icelandic meals) with bread and more whipped butter.




And then we were given the option of fermented shark. Which we tried, of course!

It tastes like cheese made from fish. Not awful at all -- pungent, definitely, but not bad. Our guide explained that it's not usually eaten at this time of year; usually it's eaten in February as part of a week of traditional fermented/pickled foods, and so this particular shark was not as thoroughly fermented or strongly-tasting as it would be normally. I would happily eat it after another couple of months of fermentation, I think.

Next up was a stop at Ostabúðin á Skólavörðustíg -- a sort of delicatessen cafe on the main street in Reykjavik.



Here we were given samples: first meats, then cheeses.

 

The meats we sampled were smoked lamb, horse, and cured geese. My first taste of horse! It tastes very like beef. The cured goose was very nice, quite gamey. The cheeses were a smooth gouda, a brie, and a blue cheese -- all of which were produced in Iceland, and which our guide was very proud to describe to us, since cheesemaking in Iceland is a relatively new thing.

 Our next stop was Caffe Loki, a cafe up near the big cathedral Hallgrimskirkja.




They serve an icecream here that is made from the same dark sweet ryebread that crops up a lot in Icelandic meals. It's bread icecream, and it is delicious, and comes topped with cream and caramel syrup.

After this we ambled down to Bæjarins Beztu, the oldest 'restaurant' in Iceland, established about eighty years ago.



It's a hot dog stall! The hot dogs are made with lamb, which makes them quite rich, and they were delicious enough that almost everyone had two, with mustard and mayo and fried onions.

I can't remember, but I think this was the point in the tour at which we were given tubs of Skyr -- the icelandic thick yoghurt -- to eat as we walked. Strawberry flavour, which I usually avoid, but this was nice enough and the texture of this brand was creamier and thicker than the variant sold in the UK under the brandname of Skyr. Eating it in the wind and cold was a challenge, though!

Next up was a walk down to the Old Harbour, and Sægreifinn - Sea Baron restaurant, a place that feels very old-fashioned and has a waxwork model of the old owner sitting under the staircase to surprise you with. Here we had lobster soup (and more bread and whipped butter).

(Both excellent.)

From here we went to the rather upscale-feeling surroundings of Apotek, a restaurant in a building that was purpose-built as a pharmacy and which is decorated appropriately.



This was apricot marscapone dessert with hazelnut and caramel, plus mango and passionfruit sorbet.

(It looked delicious even inside. And a very nice coffee to go with it.) 

That was the final stop of the food tour, and it was a delicious finale. Our guide gave each of us a Sirius chocolate bar to cap everything off.

It was a wonderful tour, and a really good start to the trip -- even without the food, it would have been a nice tour around Reykjavik, but it certainly didn't hurt to eat such delicious food and to have such pleasant company to do so in! Highly recommended.

Having filled up on the tour, our dinner that evening was drinks, bread and a grilled cheese sandwich in the bar of the Fosshotel Reykjavik (where we were staying). 



Even the grilled cheese sandwich was delicious, and the mulled spiced wine was a very nice cap to the day!