Eat List: Iceland

Finding good food across the island, from Reykjavík to Vestmannaeyjar & beyond.

Dill’s Gunnar Karl Gíslason + friends gathering seabird eggs in Breiðafjörður Bay. Photo: Nicholas Gill.

I started going to Iceland in 2010, when I had a few random assignments about the food there. Even though a lot of what I ate then was rather gimmicky and uninspiring, a meal at the end of the trip at Gunnar Karl Gíslason’s restaurant Dill, which had just opened the year before, showed me what else Icelandic cuisine could be, both through its traditions and its future. As it’s a surprisingly quick flight from New York, I started going there regularly, and wrote about everything from forgotten breeds of goats to food halls opening in old fish factories, plus updated a few editions of a guidebook. I even spent much of the summer of 2019 on the island of Heimaey while writing the book with Gísli Matt about his restaurant Slippurinn. The restaurant scene has gradually improved, focusing its attention on some of the beautiful ingredients it does have rather than what it does not. As surreal and otherworldly as I still see the landscape, it strangely feels like another home whenever I’m there. Few places can give me as much joy from traveling and eating.

There is plenty of awful food in Iceland, and I’m not referring to Old Icelandic recipes like hákarl, fermented Greenland shark, or gas station hot dogs, which I’ve indulged in more than once. There is loads of American-style fast food and pub grub, some of it decent, as well as cookie cutter food halls and restaurants whose entire model revolves around serving food to shock tourists. However, if you know where to look there are good places to eat scattered all over the country. Aside of New Icelandic restaurants like Dill and Slippurinn, there are great Indian restaurants, artisan bakeries and even taquerias.

I have broken the guide down by region rather than individual cities, as most travelers to Iceland don’t tend to stick to one place. Also, keep in mind that outside of Reykjavík, many of the restaurants shut down outside of the summer months, so this guide works best from about mid-May to September.