Cafe Hreyfill

You will not find Cafe Hreyfill in any guidebook, and that is precisely what makes it worth knowing about. Tucked away at a taxi station on Fellsmuli, well outside the tourist centre, this tiny cafe serves some of the cheapest and most honest food in Reykjavik to a clientele that consists almost entirely of taxi drivers and local workers who have been coming here for years.

The Food

The menu is simple to the point of brevity: two daily specials, and that is it. The dishes lean toward Eastern European home cooking -- hearty, warming, and designed to fill you up rather than impress you. Soups, stews, meat with potatoes, and the kind of comfort food that makes sense when you have been driving a taxi around Reykjavik since five in the morning.

Everything is made from scratch, portions are generous, and the price is so low it feels like a clerical error. In a city where a sandwich and coffee can easily cost ISK 3,000, paying ISK 1,500 for a full hot meal borders on the surreal.

The Setting

There is no ambience here, and that is a feature rather than a bug. The cafe occupies a small room at the Hreyfill taxi station, with functional furniture, a counter where you collect your food, and the background hum of drivers checking in for their shifts. It is about as far from Reykjavik's Instagram-friendly restaurant scene as you can get, which may be exactly why some people love it.

Getting There

Fellsmuli is in the 108 district, east of the city centre. If you are staying downtown, it is about a twenty-minute walk or a short ride on bus number 1 or 6. The trip is not convenient for casual tourists, and Cafe Hreyfill makes no effort to attract them. This is a place that exists to serve its regulars, and visitors are welcome as long as they understand what they are getting.

The Verdict

Cafe Hreyfill is not for everyone. If you want a curated dining experience, stay in the city centre. But if you want to eat where the locals eat -- really eat, not the "local favourite" that every tourist also knows about -- this is one of the most authentic dining experiences in Reykjavik. The food is humble, the prices are extraordinary, and the atmosphere is a window into a side of the city that most visitors never see.

Come hungry, come during the week, and do not expect anything other than a good, cheap meal. That is all Cafe Hreyfill promises, and it delivers every time.