What Is the Favourite Food of Icelanders?

Icelanders are very keen on new things and tend to take things to the extreme when new things become popular. So what is the favourite food of Icelanders?

If the world we live in were a fictional place, Icelanders would probably mostly eat rotten sharks, singed sheep head, and the Icelandic version of Haggis, lifrarpylsa. But, even though people eat those things here in Iceland, and for some, it is their ultimate favorite food, most people would choose something more modern.

We like new things

Icelanders are very keen on new things and tend to take things to the extreme when new things become popular. Take the Béarnaise sauce, for example; this quintessential 60s sauce was as famous here as it was in the rest of the Western world when mini gherkins were all the rage. However, it fell out of favor, and you rarely, if ever, saw it anywhere. You could get Eggs Benedict in a restaurant with its mother Hollandaise sauce. Most people forgot how to make it, and a whole generation had never even tasted it. What happened next will shock you! Read on.

Favourite food of Icelanders:

Béarnaise sauce

Then slowly but surely started making its way back into the social consciousness. At first, you could get it on steak sandwiches; then, suddenly, one burger joint had it on offer. It just so happened it was one of the most popular burger joints in Reykjavík. It just kept on rolling from there, and now you can get it at every restaurant (especially hamburger places) and buy it ready-made from many different food companies in the supermarket. Suddenly, everyone loves the sauce and doesn’t know how they lived all those years without it.

It does help that the low-carb diet is trendy and that sauce is one of the few people are allowed to eat!

Sushi

When Friends were the best thing since sliced bread (for many, they still are, and a whole new generation are experiencing the sitcom now for the first time), the six friends sometimes ate Sushi. Icelanders had no idea what that was because Japanese cuisine had not made its way to the island. We would have to wait a few more years, but in the early 2000s, we finally got Sushi, and it has been extremely popular since then. There are at least three restaurants in downtown Reykjavík that are specialized in sushi restaurants, Sushi Social, Sakebarinn, and the O-Sushi Train, which has the traditional (and fun!) conveyer belt. Then there are Tokyo sushi and Sushibarinn just out of the center.

Kebab

Icelanders have benefited from increasing multiculturalism in Iceland for the last 20 years. By Ingólfstorg in the center of Reykjavík, you can find four different middle eastern restaurants and fast food places. They are all very good in their own right, but none of them have the same food as the owners all come from different countries. Two of them, Ali Baba and Mandi, are a favorite for many Icelanders after having painted the town red during weekends. Still, it’s not only in a drunken stupor Icelanders eat the food there. Shalimar is a restaurant, but their Curry in a hurry lunch offer is a great way to eat there. On the other side of the street is Kebabhúsið, the first Kebab place to open in Reykjavík and had regular kebabs on offer and fish and chips pizzas burgers, and more. Other places of notice are Víking kebab in Kópavogur and Aleppo kebab in Akureyri.

Hamburgers

You will be hard-pressed to find the typical fast-food burgers like McDonald’s and Burger King in Iceland – especially since those two chains are not found in the country. Metro burgers in Skeifan are the closest you can get to McDonald’s. However, there are quite a few burger places in Iceland, and all of them are good. If you want, you could go on a burger joint crawl instead of a beer crawl in the center, but we recommend you start in Ármúli and check out LeCock burgers. Other places worth mentioning are Hamborgarabúlla Tómasar (Tommi’s), Dirty Burgers and Ribs, Block Burger, and Lebowski (great if there’s a party vibe going, dead center Reykjavík). All these places are in downtown Reykjavík. And saving the best for last, you must try out The Gastro Truck (it’s in Icelandic, here’s their FB page). It’s like nothing you’ve ever tasted, and that is why it is one of favourite foods of Icelanders.