Despite all my meticulous planning, a lot of things did not go to plan on our trip to Iceland. You’ll be hearing about a lot of them in subsequent blog posts. But there was one thing that I did get spectacularly right, and that was booking a Reykjavik Food Walk for our first evening in Iceland a few weeks before we got there. You may even want to do this further out if you will be traveling in high season, because according to TripAdvisor, it’s the #1 tour in Reykjavik. Slots fill up quickly.
Most American flights arrive in the morning, and by the time you go through customs and figure out your transportation from Keflavik Airport to your hotel, it’s almost time to check in, and you’re exhausted from both the flight itself and the time change, so you can’t be blamed if you want to take a nap. And one thing I know about myself is I will nap if given the least bit of incentive. So I decided to book our tour for 5:30 pm that night.
Even if you are traveling on a budget, this 3-hour tour is worth the splurge, because it accomplishes several things you’ll need that first day in this amazing country:
- You won’t spend your first evening trying to figure out where and what to eat. In fact, you will have one of the best meals of your life (even if it does happen to be spread over 5 restaurants!)
- You will then get a good idea of some of the Icelandic food you really want to look for on the rest of your trip (and also what you want to avoid).
- You’ll get a basic orientation to the city center which will come in handy for the rest of your Reykjavik sightseeing.
- You’ll be spending three hours with a local guide who will be telling you stories, yes, but will also have time, while you enjoy your repast, to answer any lingering questions you have about the country, its culture, and even basic stuff like where’s the nearest bus stop that will take us back to our hotel. Normally you’d be paying good money for an advisor like that. Here, the advising comes as a bonus as you eat.
And besides, the food walk is a lot of fun! You meet fellow travelers and can discuss what you’re looking forward to seeing, and if all the other guides are as charming and charismatic as ours was, you’ll want to adopt them and take them home with you afterward.
So, let’s discuss the food. I’m not going to mention every one of the restaurants, because that would reveal all the food walk secrets. But I’m sitting here looking at the photos we took and my mouth is watering at the mere memory of them.
Because we’d be eating at 5 locations, the portions were small, thank goodness, or I wouldn’t have enjoyed the last ones very much. But they clearly have this tour down to a science, because they got it just right. And just a side note: they did provide vegan options and asked about food sensitivities and allergies, but I won’t be talking about those meals as I didn’t experience them personally. But based on the reactions of the other tourists, they were quite pleased with their meals as well.
At our first stop, we had lamb shank with mashed potatoes, broccoli, pearl onions, forest mushrooms and wine sauce. I can still bring myself right back there. What a delight, and what a weight off my shoulders! I had no clue what to expect from Icelandic food, and my autistic sensibilities get a bit rattled when I have to try new things, but this was perfection.
Also, I was worried that I wouldn’t like lamb, and that would have been a problem, because this is a lamb-laden country, so my eating options would be greatly reduced. I’ve had bad mutton experiences in the past, but this was nothing like that. It was just pure, tender, savory goodness. (But I do think all the sheep in the country somehow sensed that I had eaten lamb, because whenever one made eye contact with me during the trip, there was this slight look of disdain. I’m glad I never met any of them in a back alley.)
At our next restaurant we had a bit of a high-end surf and turf in the form of Marinated lamb tenderloin with liquorice as well as Icelandic blue ling in langoustine sauce. Now, given that I had never heard of blue ling until that very moment, I was quite relieved to discover that it was delicious. (I have to say, though, that I’m kind of glad I didn’t Google it before trying it, because they’re freaky looking fish, indeed.)
At restaurant three we had slow-cooked cod with smoked lamb and noisette-hollandaise sauce. And have I mentioned that the plating for all these dishes was superb? I felt like I was eating a work of art, and they tasted like masterpieces. And one thing I have to say about every Icelandic sit down restaurant we encountered: Icelanders understand atmosphere. Every place was cozy and unique, and had soft music. I don’t think we encountered a single place during our entire trip where you had to shout to hear your dining companion, and it was refreshing.
We also had another food experience at that particular venue. I’ll go into more detail about that below. But let’s talk about the last two stops on the tour first.
Now, I’m going to reveal the name of restaurant four, despite the fact that my opinion of it will probably get me banned from ever visiting Iceland again. We went to Bæjarins Beztu Pylsur, which is a hot dog stand that seems to be all the rage. You hear Icelanders brag about these dogs all the time. They’re unique because they’re made with (of course) lamb, among oh so many other things.
If this place isn’t recommended to you by at least 3 Icelanders a week, then you haven’t spoken to many Icelanders during your trip and you need to get out more. They have hot dogs named after some of the celebrities that have eaten there: Clinton, Kardashian, and Bieber. Sometimes the line for this stand stretches around the block. It was pretty long when we got there.
I’ve got to say, though, that I was disappointed. To me, it was a skinny, flavorless dog on a wonder bread bun with a mix of watery sauces squirted over it that had no business mingling with each other. I didn’t even take a picture of mine. I couldn’t finish it. But hey, they’ve been around since 1937, and the lines are ridiculously long, so decide for yourself.
And then we went to Tivoli for dessert and coffee. For starters, they have the most fascinating art on the ceiling of their entrance alcove. It really intrigued me, and made me wonder what I was about to get myself into. In a good way.
There, we had rhubarb crumble with fresh whipped cream. The reason I single this restaurant out is that even if you can’t afford the Food Walk, even if you’ve been (quite accurately) warned that food in Iceland is outrageously expensive and have resigned yourself to peanut butter and crackers for the entire trip, you have got to at least try this rhubarb crumble. It was, without a doubt, the best comfort food I’ve ever eaten. I wanted to climb onto the plate and fall asleep in the stuff, wrapping the whipped cream around me like a blanket. It was heavenly.
I have to give a special shout out to our tour guide, Mímir Bjarki Pálmason, who you can see holding the bottle of Brennivín in the photo below. Not only is he a great tour guide, but he’s also an actor, and even has a few credits on IMDb. He definitely has that it factor. He lights up a room when he enters it. And he went above and beyond for us by walking us to our bus stop after the tour, and sending all of us a follow-up email afterward with helpful links to restaurants, informational websites, taxi companies, grocery stores, and places to visit. I hope his acting career works out. (But I have to say I like our photo of him better than the ones he’s using on IMDb—ours is more of a romantic comedy lead character—the IMDb ones are more of a brooding crime guy. He should play more to his delightful strength. Just sayin’.)
But anyway, what a great tour, and what a great way to end our first night in Iceland! After that, we slept the sleep of the well fed, adjusted easily to the time change, and woke up the next morning ready to take on Reykjavik! I highly recommend the Reykjavik Food Walk.
Now, read no further if you have a weakish stomach.
I promised to tell you about the other food experience. Yep, you guessed it. We were given the opportunity to try fermented shark. I already knew I wasn’t going to partake, as I’ve never heard of anyone who has walked away enjoying the experience, and I’m glad I didn’t, because there was rhubarb crumble in my future. But Dear Husband gave it a go, and for the life of me, I don’t know how he survived.
Hákarl, as it’s called, is considered by some to be the national dish of Iceland, and I’m thinking that’s more from tradition and bragging rights than anything else. I can’t imagine anyone tucking into a full plate of the stuff. In fact, it’s made from Greenland shark, whose flesh is toxic to humans, so the first person who decided to figure out how to eat this creature must have been hungry indeed. I’m guessing it washed up on a beach somewhere, perhaps, and was already half rotten when some starving Icelander first encountered it.
Since this is a sleeper shark that swims deep in the coldest parts of our oceans, its biological system had to adapt, so here’s my very unscientific description of how it works. This is a shark that is basically a huge circulating anti-freeze system. Now, imagine eating that. How hungry would you have to be?
Okay, so technically, it isn’t anti-freeze. But their system produces urea and trimethylamine N-oxide (which have multiple biological functions, but let’s not get into the weeds here), so when you smell it, it can only be compared to a delightful combination of urine and ammonia. And that’s after as much of the liquid as possible has been squeezed out of it and various chemical changes have occurred over a period of months.
All I did was take one whiff of the stuff and it’s a stench I will never forget as long as I live. According to Wikipedia, Chef Anthony Bourdain described fermented shark as “the single worst, most disgusting and terrible tasting thing” he had ever eaten, and lord knows that man ate some vile substances in his lifetime. And Chef Gordon Ramsay, after trying it, immediately vomited into a bucket.
Traditionally, most people follow this culinary adventure up with a shot of Brennivín, also known as “Black Death” an aquavit that’s made of fermented potato or grain mash and flavored with caraway seeds, which apparently gives it a cumin flavor. That doesn’t sound appealing to me, but then I haven’t had alcohol in 40 years. But then, if I had just eaten a chewy lump of ammonia, I suppose I’d drink anything to cleanse my palate.
Some other fun facts about Greenland Sharks in case you needed any other reasons not to eat them:
- They are the longest-living vertebrates known to science. Researchers estimated one specimen’s age at 392 years, give or take a staggering 120 years.
- They may not reach sexual maturity until they’re about 150 years old.
- They can get up to 21 feet long and weigh up to 2,200 pounds.
- They give birth to live young, but scientists still aren’t sure how many pups they typically have or how long their pregnancies last. One estimate suggested a gestation period of 8 to 18 years, (Yes, I said years!) although that figure remains unconfirmed.
- Scientists who have opened their stomachs have found eels, sharks, beluga whales, dog, horse, and reindeer inside.
- Bioluminescent parasitic copepods attach themselves to their eyes, sometimes obscuring their vision. But a 2026 study revealed that these sharks have remarkably well-preserved visual systems, despite living for centuries in near-total darkness..
Greenland sharks are not yet listed as endangered, but they are listed as vulnerable, due to late maturity, low fecundity, global warming, overfishing and bycatch (getting caught in commercial fishing nets) issues. Per Wikipedia, Iceland only hunts 25 Greenland sharks a year. It mostly relies on sharks accidentally caught in commercial fishing nets for their national dish these days, but given that about 3500 of these sharks are accidentally caught in these nets around the world each year, something needs to change, and soon.
That should make them even less palatable to you than their flavor.
Additional Sources:
Calm down, scientists didn’t discover a 512-year-old shark. (It’s probably like 400, tops.)
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