All price references in this article verified April 2025.
Build the food tour in first, on day one, and plan everything else around what you learn there. The city is small enough to walk completely, and the best eating is spread across three distinct zones: the old harbour and Grandi district to the west, the Hverfisgata corridor one street north of the main tourist strip, and Laugavegur itself for bakeries and fast casual. Lunch specials are where quality restaurants become affordable. Dinner is for the one or two places worth booking ahead.
The mistake most visitors make is planning their eating reactively – wandering until hungry, then choosing from whatever’s visible. In an expensive city where tourist-facing restaurants cluster around the most photographed streets, that approach produces mediocre meals at high prices. The better structure is to plan the two or three specific eating moments that matter most and eat simply around them.
A few planning principles that hold across any trip length. First: bakeries before 9am, lunch specials between 11:30am and 2pm, food halls for casual evening meals when you want variety without a full restaurant commitment. Second: the restaurants your food tour guide specifically names are the ones worth returning to, not the ones with the most TripAdvisor reviews. Third: book anything at Dill, Matur og Drykkur, or Óx before you arrive, not from your hotel room the night before.
Reykjavik is walkable in a way that makes food planning feel different from a larger city. The old harbour is 15 minutes on foot from Hallgrímskirkja. Grandi is 5 minutes past the harbour. The entire food geography fits inside a 30-minute walk, which means you can actually plan to visit specific places at specific times without logistics getting in the way.
Day one has one priority: get oriented fast, eat broadly, and arrive at day two knowing the city’s food landscape rather than having to learn it by trial and error across three more days. The food tour accomplishes all of this in three hours. Build the day around it. Bakery breakfast in the morning, tour in the afternoon, no dinner needed.
Start at Brauð and Co on Frakkastígur. They open at 6:30am and bake continuously, which means the cinnamon rolls that sell out by mid-morning are reliably available early. The organic pastry dough, made with proper lamination and a cardamom note that Icelanders associate with breakfast, sets the tone for the day better than anything else within reach of the airport bus route. Take it to go. Walk Frakkastígur down toward the harbour. The city in early morning, before the tourist foot traffic arrives, has a quality that doesn’t survive past 9am.
If you arrive later in the morning, Sandholt on Laugavegur has been baking since 1920, now in its fourth generation, and offers a broader sit-down breakfast with savoury options: smoked salmon sandwiches, sourdough with Icelandic butter, eggs. The espresso is properly made. This is the option if you want to sit down, read, and decompress from the journey before the day starts properly.
The food tour runs best in the early afternoon, ideally the 1pm or 2pm slot if one is available. This timing means you arrive genuinely hungry after a light morning, cover 8-13 dishes across five to seven stops in three hours, and finish at early evening with a mental map of the city and a list of specific recommendations from your guide. Most people who do the tour at this time are too full for dinner. That’s fine. Use the evening to walk the harbour circuit from Harpa to the old lighthouse, stop for a beer at happy hour if you’re inclined, and go to bed having eaten well and learned something.
The day one food tour isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s the decision that makes the rest of the trip’s eating better. We’ve been doing this since 2014, and the pattern is consistent: travelers who do the tour on day one consistently report eating better on days two and three because they know what to look for. Book your tour at Reykjavik Food Tours here.
Not sure what Icelandic cuisine actually looks like beyond the fermented shark jokes? Here’s our what to eat in Reykjavik food tours guide so you arrive with an open mind and a proper appetite.
Day two is for applying what you learned yesterday. Specialty coffee in the morning. A proper lunch special at a Hverfisgata or side-street restaurant that your guide mentioned. Langoustine soup at the old harbour in the late afternoon. A casual, varied dinner at Grandi Mathöll. This day covers the gap between quick bites and fine dining in a way that feels genuinely Icelandic rather than tourist-facing.
Reykjavik Roasters on Kárastígur has been Iceland’s leading specialty coffee roaster since 2008. It’s a small shop with mismatched vintage furniture and a consistent level of espresso work that makes it a genuine daily institution for people who live here. The Kárastígur location opens at 8am on weekdays. The newer outpost inside Ásmundarsalur art gallery has a different atmosphere, calmer and flooded with light, with an outdoor patio that’s worth knowing about in summer. Either location produces the best flat white in the city.
The lunch special principle applies everywhere on day two but Hverfisgata is where it works best. This street runs parallel to Laugavegur, one block north, and has a concentration of restaurants that charge 5,000-8,000 ISK for dinner and 2,000-3,000 ISK for the same quality food at lunch. Mat Bar, which serves rotating small plates of modern Icelandic cooking with scallops, Arctic char, and precise vegetable preparations, is the kind of place where three lunch dishes cost less than one dinner main anywhere on the tourist circuit. It fills up fast; arrive at 11:30am or be prepared to wait.
In the late afternoon, walk to the old harbour. Sægreifinn occupies a tiny shack near the water, decorated with fishing memorabilia, and has served the same langoustine soup for decades. The soup is rich, slightly sweet, deeply flavoured, and arrives with bread. It’s not fine dining. It’s better than fine dining in its own category. If you haven’t tried fermented shark yet, this is where to do it: a small cube, the Brennivín shot alongside it, and a guide or counter staff who will tell you exactly what you’re eating.
For dinner, Grandi Mathöll at Grandagarður 16 is the best casual eating choice in the city. A converted fish warehouse housing around ten food stalls, it covers everything from Indonesian and Korean to Icelandic fish and chips. The fish and chips here, with a spelt flour batter lighter than the British version, is worth the trip alone. The communal seating and good atmosphere make it the right choice when you want to eat well but not commit to a full restaurant booking. Get there by 6pm on a weekday. Weekends fill early.
First time trying to eat affordably in Iceland and not sure it’s even possible? Here’s our Reykjavik food tours cheap eats guide so you stop assuming everything is out of reach.
Day three is for the specific and the deliberate. One place your guide told you to return to. One serious lunch. One booked dinner. If you planned ahead, Matur og Drykkur at the old harbour is the evening anchor. If you didn’t book Matur og Drykkur in advance, Íslenski Barinn or Þrír Frakkar are the honest, unfussy alternatives that locals keep returning to.
Start at Café Loki, directly across from Hallgrímskirkja. It opens at 9am. Order the plokkfiskur (fish stew) with rúgbrauð, ask for a piece of the geothermal rye bread with butter on the side, and have the rye bread ice cream for dessert. That ice cream, stale rúgbrauð crumbled into dense Icelandic dairy ice cream, sounds like a concept and eats like a revelation. This is the meal that makes people understand what traditional Icelandic food actually means when it’s good.
For lunch, Messinn on Laugavegur (they have a second location at Grandi) serves fresh catch of the day pan-fried in a cast-iron skillet brought directly to the table. No reservation system, which means the queue forms early. Arrive at 11:30am when they open. The fish is ordered by weight, the potatoes are simple, the salad is honest. It’s the kind of meal that costs 3,500-5,500 ISK, leaves nothing to complain about, and represents Iceland’s fish quality more directly than any restaurant three times the price.
For day three dinner, Matur og Drykkur at Grandagarður 2 is the serious food option. The restaurant operates Thursday through Sunday for dinner service only, offers a seasonal tasting menu built on historical Icelandic recipes: cod’s head soup, halibut with preserved vegetables, lamb in forms that have been eaten here for centuries, now prepared with precision and contemporary technique. The building was a salt fish factory in 1924. The menu is built around a 1947 Icelandic cookbook. Book at least two weeks ahead. If that ship has sailed, Íslenski Barinn off Laugavegur serves genuine lamb soup, harðfiskur, and fermented shark in a cosy, lived-in setting that doesn’t feel staged for tourists. It’s a local bar that happens to serve excellent traditional food, which is the ideal category for a final evening in the city.
Not sure which traditional dishes are genuinely worth trying and which ones are mostly eaten for the shock value? Check out our traditional Icelandic food guide before your first meal in Reykjavik.
Three zones define where the best eating happens in Reykjavik. The old harbour and Grandi district to the northwest for seafood, casual eating, and heritage restaurants. Hverfisgata, one street north of the main shopping strip, for independent restaurants that locals actually use. The Hallgrímskirkja neighbourhood around Frakkastígur and Skólavörðustígur for bakeries, coffee, and traditional cafés. Avoid basing your eating exclusively on Laugavegur itself, where visibility drives foot traffic rather than quality.
The old harbour and Grandi district is the neighbourhood worth building a half-day around. Walk from Harpa westward along the waterfront. Sægreifinn is the small shack with the green roof that’s been at the harbour for decades. Messinn, at the Grandi location, does the cast-iron fish skillet at lunch. Grandi Mathöll is the food hall in the converted warehouse. Matur og Drykkur, for dinner, is two streets back. The entire circuit takes less than an hour to walk and covers some of the best eating in the city.
Hverfisgata runs parallel to Laugavegur and is consistently underutilised by visitors. Dill is here. Mat Bar is on the corner of Hverfisgata and Bergstaðastræti. Þrír Frakkar, a small bistro that has been cooking classic Icelandic seafood for over 30 years, is nearby. Grái Kötturinn, a basement café with enormous breakfasts and a “Truck Driver” special that locals arrive early to claim, is on this street. One street north of the main tourist corridor and almost everything improves.
Want to eat your way through Iceland’s capital with someone who actually knows where to go? Here’s our best Reykjavik food tours guide so you book the right experience.
If you have one day, the food tour is that day’s food plan. If you have two days, add Grandi and the old harbour on day two. Three days or more is when the full itinerary above applies. For a layover or single afternoon, the food tour plus a hot dog from Bæjarins Beztu is the honest answer: three hours of guided eating covers more ground than a full day of independent wandering in an unfamiliar food city.
One day in Reykjavik with food as the priority looks like this: Brauð and Co at 7am for a cinnamon roll and coffee. Walk the waterfront while the city wakes up. Food tour at 1pm, three hours, 8-13 dishes, city orientation included. Beer at happy hour (800-1,000 ISK) at Skúli Craft Bar or Kaffibarinn. Hot dog at Bæjarins Beztu on the way back to the hotel if you still have room, which you probably won’t. That day covers more of Reykjavik’s food culture than most visitors manage in three days of independent eating.
Two days adds the Grandi circuit on day two. Reykjavik Roasters for coffee. Lunch special somewhere on Hverfisgata or at Mat Bar. Walk to the old harbour in the afternoon, langoustine soup at Sægreifinn, then Grandi Mathöll for dinner. Two days with this structure produces a comprehensive introduction to Icelandic food without any wasted meals or tourist trap detours.
For longer stays, the day three structure above handles fine dining and specific deep-dives. The guide’s recommendations from the food tour are the variable that makes days four and five useful rather than repetitive: specific restaurants, specific dishes, specific ordering guidance that no article fully replicates. Ask your guide at the end of the tour for the three restaurants they’d book if they had 48 hours to eat as a visitor in their own city. Write those down. Those are the meals.
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photo from tour Reykjavik Food Lovers Tour – Traditional Icelandic Food TastingsReykjavik Food Lovers Tour – Traditional Icelandic Food Tastings
Four things that will save you money, disappointment, or both: lunch specials run 11:30am to 2pm and are the most useful tool in Reykjavik’s food economy; Dill and Matur og Drykkur need advance booking or they won’t happen; dietary restrictions should be communicated at booking not at the door; and the tap water in Iceland is glacial spring water, genuinely excellent, and free – never buy a bottle.
The lunch special (dagblað or dagsrétt) is Iceland’s best-kept budget secret and most food articles ignore it. Restaurants that charge 5,000-8,000 ISK for a dinner main routinely offer a smaller version of the same dish, or a soup-plus-bread combination, for 2,000-2,800 ISK between 11:30am and 2pm. Apotek, which is a proper upscale restaurant on one of Reykjavik’s nicest heritage streets, offers two courses for 7,990 ISK at lunch against 10,490+ ISK for a dinner main. The food is the same kitchen. The price difference is real. Structure your days to eat the best meals at lunch and eat simply at dinner, and your food budget stretches significantly.
Booking ahead is not optional for specific restaurants. Dill books out weeks in advance, particularly for weekend dinner slots. Matur og Drykkur opens Thursday through Sunday and has limited covers. Óx has 11 seats. If these matter to you, book from home, not from your hotel. The same applies to the food tour: summer slots fill quickly, and the most popular departure times (1pm, 2pm, 5pm) go first.
Dietary restrictions handled at booking produce a different experience than restrictions disclosed at the door. Operators who run serious food tours brief every venue before your group arrives. The kitchen has your alternative ready. Mentioning restrictions to the guide at the meeting point means some stops will have options and some won’t, and the guide spends the tour improvising rather than guiding. The same principle applies at restaurants: call or email when you book, not when you sit down.
The tap water point seems minor but adds up over a week. Iceland’s tap water comes from glacial springs and is among the cleanest in the world. Every restaurant will bring it on request. Filling a reusable bottle at every stop costs nothing and tastes better than any bottled water on the island. Don’t pay for bottled water in Iceland.
We’ve put together a full food cost breakdown in our is food expensive in Reykjavik tours guide so you know exactly what to expect at every price point from street food to sit-down restaurants.
We’ve been showing travelers the real Reykjavik food scene since 2014. Come eat with us and let the tour build your itinerary for you.
Based on feedback from our cohort of 8,700+ travelers guided through Reykjavik’s food scene since 2014.
Bakery breakfast at Brauð and Co or Sandholt, then a food tour in the afternoon. The tour covers 8-13 dishes across five to seven stops and orients you to the city’s food geography at the same time. Most people skip dinner after the tour because they’re still full. That’s the ideal first day.
The old harbour and Grandi district consistently produces the best eating per króna spent. Sægreifinn for langoustine soup, Grandi Mathöll for casual varied dinner, Matur og Drykkur for serious traditional-based cooking, and Messinn for pan-fried fresh fish. Hverfisgata, one block north of the main tourist strip, is the second strongest zone for local restaurants and lunch specials.
Lunch specials between 11:30am and 2pm are the single most effective tool. The same restaurants that charge 5,000-8,000 ISK for dinner regularly offer smaller versions of the same food for 2,000-2,800 ISK at lunch. Bakeries for breakfast, food halls for casual evening meals, and Bónus supermarket for snacks and skyr all cut costs without sacrificing quality. Tap water is glacial spring water and free – never buy bottled water in Iceland.
For Dill, Matur og Drykkur, and Óx, advance booking is not optional – these fill weeks ahead for weekend dinner slots. For mid-range and casual restaurants, a same-day or next-day booking is usually sufficient except in peak summer. Messinn and Sægreifinn don’t take reservations; arrive when they open at 11:30am to avoid long waits. The food tour books out fastest of all in summer – book at least 1-4 weeks ahead for peak season.
Book the food tour for that day. One day isn’t enough to discover the food scene independently and eat well across it. Three hours with a guide who has done this 8,700 times covers more ground than a full day of individual restaurant research, and you’ll leave with specific recommendations for anywhere else you eat. Add a hot dog from Bæjarins Beztu if you have room, which you probably won’t.
Bakeries before 9am for the best pastries before sell-out. Lunch specials from 11:30am to 2pm for the best value. Late afternoon around 5pm at Sægreifinn before the dinner queue forms. Early dinner at 6pm at proper restaurants to beat the peak crowd and get attentive service. Icelandic ice cream has no rules – locals eat it at 11pm in February. Follow their lead.
The best Reykjavik food itinerary starts with a guide who has eaten this city 8,700 times.
We’ve been orienting travelers to Reykjavik’s food scene since 2014. Three hours, 8-13 tastings, the specific restaurant recommendations that change how the rest of your trip eats. Small groups. Local guides. All food included.
Book your Reykjavik food tour and build your itinerary from there.
