Iceland: Food + Drink — To Make Much of Time

UPDATED: 1/16/2023

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Before we visited Iceland, we had only three pieces of information about food in Iceland and no idea about their view on alcohol. The three bits of food information we had were:

It’s expensive. Multiple, independent personal friends we knew who had visited had warned us that food was expensive. Sure, sure, we thought, imagining that people were exaggerating.
Anthony Bourdain’s Iceland episode on his show No Reservations - Season 1, episode 2 which aired in 2005 - where he ate fermented shark, which he thought was disgusting. (see below and our separate blog for our thoughts on ethical food consumption)
Our online research had suggested stocking up on groceries in Reykjavik and that pickings was sparse outside of the capital.

What we found was that some of this was accurate, but there was more to the story. And no one warned us about Iceland’s surprising past (and present) when it comes to alcohol!

To tackle what we learned and what we recommend, we’ll break this down into restaurant eating, cooking for yourself and grocery shopping, and a quick summary of what to expect if you plan to imbibe.

What to eat and what’s unique:

Iceland produces a lot of lamb and has a solid fishing industry, so both lamb and fish are good options, no matter where you dine. Iceland is semi-famous for its hot dogs, which typically are made from lamb with pork and/or beef. We had them several times for a simple meal. We discovered that mustard in Iceland is a bit different - it is sweet and had mixed reception among us eaters of it (I was not a fan). Skyr is an Icelandic yogurt that is thick, similar to Greek yogurt, but with its own Icelandic cultures that date back about 1,000 years. I ate a lot with breakfast and would recommend it if you like Greek yogurt. Honestly, and no offense, Iceland is a far cry from a food mecca, but we were able to get solid meals to sustain us to enjoy what Iceland excels at: nature!

Ethical food consumption

As always it is important to do your homework when traveling to ensure that you are not inadvertently contributing to practices that negatively impact the planet. Then you can make informed decisions. In Iceland some of the items to be aware of include shark, whale, and to a lesser extent Puffin. For more information read our blog dedicated to this topic here.

Restaurant dining:

Price: Given that a larger city (the only place in Iceland which fits the bill is Reykjavik) is most likely to have the most interesting restaurant options, we can’t in good faith say we really explored fine dining. What we found consistent among the different stops we made is that most food was palatable but not phenomenal but it was priced like upscale restaurants in the US. A ho-hum burger at a basic restaurant could cost in the mid to upper $20 range or higher (USD). Fresh caught fish with simple preparation would be in the upper $20 range or higher (USD), and lamb was typically higher than that. We have zero trouble splurging on delicious meals, but our restaurant experience typically felt like we were overpaying for what we were getting. We suspect this may be driven by the up-tick in tourism.

Access to food: Everywhere we stayed had at least one restaurant in the vicinity. Definitely plan ahead, as when you’re driving across large, isolated stretches, there can be areas with close to no food options.

Recommendations: If you’re in Reykjavik, definitely pick up a cinnamon bun (or pastry of your choice) at Brauð & Co.

Cooking for yourself:

As long as you have the option - staying somewhere with a kitchen, like we did with Airbnbs - we highly recommend cooking for yourself. It is much more affordable since the grocery prices were very reasonable. We chose to mostly go this route with a few dinners out when we wanted a break from cooking or were not able to get to a grocery store in time (more on that below). For lunch since we were driving and exploring, we found the most convenient option was to have fixings to make our own peanut butter & jelly sandwiches with fruit and chips.

Grocery shopping:

General experience: Even the ‘large’ chain stores are tiny by US comparison, and many towns have small market-style stores as well. Personally, I like that much better and am turned off by big warehouse stores.

Price: We found grocery stores to have very reasonable prices, especially when you consider how much of it must be flown in from outside of Iceland. The most affordable options were items that are plentiful in the country. For example, we cooked a lot of lamb.

Accessibility: There are two sides to this coin. Everywhere we stayed had a grocery store, but their hours are very limited compared to US standards and fluctuate from store to store. Some opened at times like 10am and closed at 6pm, and some may have been more limited than that. All that means it that you need to plan accordingly.

Recommendations: In order to find grocery stores as we traveled, we Googled for locations and hours. Two common grocery stores are Krónan and Bónus, but we found other options in areas where they didn’t have these two.

Alcohol:

We were surprised to find alcohol relatively evasive outside of restaurants and found some interesting and unexpected history when we looked into it.

Where to buy alcohol in Iceland: The grocery stores carry a ‘light’ beer that must be (by law) less than 2.25% alcohol by volume. For comparison, a typical beer is likely to have double that at around 5% (individual beers can vary), and ‘non-alcoholic’ beers actually have about 0.4%. Any ‘real’ beer, wine, or other liquor is only available in state-run alcohol stores, Vínbúðin, which are closed on Sundays (I believe country-wide) and have limited hours on other days. They are typically open for about 8 hours a day though this varies by location. Outside of Reykjavik, the stores are limited, and you can view a map here of their locations.

Iceland’s alcohol history: Like the US’s prohibition past, 60% of Iceland’s population voted to ban all beer, wine, and spirits, and this went into effect in 1915. The ban on wine ended in 1922, on spirits in 1935, but the ban on beer lasted until…wait for it…1989! The logic was, apparently, that workers and youth would be more likely to drink beer than the other drinks and so that was part of the reason for such a long-lasting ban.

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