Reykjavík Grapevine - 20.05.2011, Blaðsíða 20

Reykjavík Grapevine - 20.05.2011, Blaðsíða 20
20 The Reykjavík Grapevine Issue 6 — 2011 It’s safe to say Portus were less interested in the culturual aspects of Harpa, so there was a strong focus in that period to optimise and detail the commercial parts of the building, the conference centre aspect, whereas the cultural aspects—the music part, the public cultural institution part, where it all started—were somewhat toned down. ‘HAPPY HOURS’ 1919 Radisson Hotel Pósthússtræti 2 Monday, 20:30 700–900 1190–1290 990 Bright with a nice view over the harbour. Elegant, art deco. 25+, High Income, low tolerance, business people. Soft, lounge music. Tasty and elegant, complimentary olives. “People don’t really come here to drink shots”. Inside the old Eimskip building—a rare pearl of Icelandic architecture. An elegant and relaxed lounge bar Austur Austurstræti 7 Friday, 23:00 1000 1300 700 Feels very upscale. The word “swank” would not be out of place here. Black is the deciding theme, although the red stairs that curled upwards in front of a wall mosaic of mirror pieces stand out as downright daring in comparison. In the front half of the bar, young club-going men, at the back, middle-aged suburban women. Piped-in low-key electronica and dance music suitable for an upscale bar. Austur is a fully functioning steakhouse during restaurant hours. Didn't really seem like a place you'd go to get hammered, but more for inviting an important VIP out for drinks, or to have a pre-dinner cocktail before your anniversary dinner. Classy without being stuffy, laid-back atmosphere. B5 Bankastræti 5 Friday, 23:52 900 1400 800 Fairly jovial in a relaxed way. Understated and sparse in that Scandinavian style. At this point in the evening, middle- aged suburbanites, although some young people were trickling in. There was a troubadour duo on keyboard and guitar, but a DJ typically plays on weekend nights. There is a Hamborgarabúlla Tómasar outlet in the back, which is open during restaurant hours. It's one large room with a big window onto the street, so you can see everything going on in there as you walk by. Pretty nice place to drop by early in the night. Bakkus Tryggvagata 22 Saturday, 01:30 700 1000 600 Hip, crowded and loud. Artsy and dark. Globalised hipster. Hip dance music. Not eating is hip. "I'm from Astoria, Queens. Where are you from?” Hipster central, smelly toilets. Where the hip young things of Reykjavík gather to drink, dance and chat. It's a fine example of a hipster joint but is let down by smelly toilets with broken fixtures. Decrepitude may be hip, but it would be nice if they fixed the sinks and toilets. Bar 46 Hverfisgata 46 Monday, 23:00 700-800 1000 700 Gloomy Classic pool joint + abstract-expres- sionist paintings. Drinking veterans mixed with pool players of all ages (including weathered hustlers). Blues, classic rock, oldies, ambient lounge, mostly depending on the bartender on shift. Sometimes they’ll have nuts, but you shouldn’t count on it. “So this is where the locals at Grand Rokk went?” Pool tables! A smoking area that really feels like you’re smoking inside. For those who love a game of pool, this is the only place to play downtown. Drinks are fairly priced and the staff is friendly. With the abstract-expressionist paintings on the wall, this place offers the perfect backdrop for a bizarre evening. Bar 11 Hverfisgata 18 Saturday, 04:24 750 1100 650 Like the cantina in Star Wars, with worse music. Whatever chairs they could find, vomit, lack of giving a fuck, the smell of teen spirit. 15–25 year-old kids who just don’t give a fuck. Pitchfork-core No A place where having 8 shots actually kind of makes sense. Just thinking about this place brings the smell of vomit to my nose; it’s that awesome. Barónspöbb Laugavegur 72 Friday, 19:00 650 1000 750 What you’d expect. In the style of a bar in the Austrian Alps for some reason. Seasoned alcoholics and middle aged sailors. 40+ No music. There are plates of food wrapped in cling film. “Vikings are overrated”. The bartender is either on the phone or absent. End of the line, yet surprisingly expensive. Bjarni Fel Austurstræti 20 Sunday, 22:30 890 1000 650 A few girls rooting for Finland’s hockey team, a few guys in open buttoned shirts discussing Liverpool. Nearly identical to Hressingarskálinn, save for a lot of TV sets displaying different sport events. Sports fans. It’s a sports bar. Food from Hressingarskálinn. “3…2…1…FINLAND! FINLAND!” Lots of sports. In same building as Hressó with the same proprietors—not much separates the two places except one has a higher ratio of sport fanatics. Boston Laugavegur 28B Friday, 00:54 850 1200 800 Decidedly upbeat-the place was packed, but not in an obnoxious, holy crap I can't move way. Dark. Pretty basic bar furniture, to be honest, although the black tassels over the windows gave it a certain Far East/ Deep South charm. Hipsters, hipsters everywhere. Actors. This is a bar for the 30+ cool crowd. Post-ironic Fleetwood Mac appreciation club. Dance DJs on weekends. Reminiscent of what Kaffibarinn and Sirkus used to be like, although the location—just outside the hub of most pub activity downtown—is refreshing. A nice enough place early in the night, and probably a great place to swing by at peak hours. Café París Austurstræti 14 Saturday, 23:00 900 1100 700 Relaxed and friendly. Furnished like any upscale street café in any major city—but very clean and neat in comparison. Families taking a stroll in town during the day, at night 30+. Tourists and people starting their night out. Inoffensive background music. Large bistro menu, everything from crêpes to prime lamb, whale and baccalao during restaurant hours. “Are you going to be asking a lot of questions? I’m very busy waiting tables, you know”. The sidewalk café, open during the day is a good place to soak up the brief Reykjavík summer. Among the very first ‘cafés’ that sprang up in Reykjavík in the ‘90s, the leading ‘French’-style sidewalk café since. It has maintained its status, while avoiding becoming a hangout for drunken Icelanders. A quiet place to sit down with a beer at night and avoid drunk locals. As touristy downtown bistros go, Café Paris is actually quite good. Celtic Cross Hverfisgata 26 Saturday, 02:32 800-900 1600 800 Irish frat boy. Interesting mood! Like they grabbed every ‘ye-olde-pub- be’ cliché in existence and stuck it up on the walls. The typical Icelandic teen: egocentric, plainspoken, drunk. TROUBADOR ALERT LEVEL 1500! Doritos/Lay’s @ 450 a packet This is where you can go to partake in a sex crime. Disneyland with drunk teenagers. The basement is where it’s at. Ignore the ground floor. Den Danske Kro Ingólfsstræti 3 Monday, 18:00 800 1200 800 Quite crowded for a Monday afternoon. People are loud and the smoking area is full. Classic, wooden, Danish, bodega style. Everyone that likes to have a beer after work and a few more after that one. Is there an ‘average beer drinker’? Well, that’s the average patron. Live troubadours and bands every night from 22:00. Classic rock and oldies, too. Chips and nuts for sale. Open faced sandwiches if ordered well in advance. “NU SKAL JEG FANDME HA´ EN CLASSIC!” The buzz around happy hour is refreshing. No bar will be as busy on a Monday at six. Perfect for that after work beer and a game of darts or backgammon. But you need to bring your own backgammon. Dillon Laugavegur 30 Wednesday, 21:15 800 1100 800 Dark, intimate, musky, like the inside of a ships galley. A place for a decent session. Decked in black/dark chocolate wood panelling, faded grime-infused floors. Pictures of rock greats: Cash, Bowie, Dylan, etc. Also a photo of resident DJ Andrea Jónsdóttir (aka ‘The White Witch’) with Robert Plant. A mix of 25+ urban types wearing jeans and jumpers, rockers and bikers. Playlist is a classic RAWK clusterfuck. Lynyrd Skynyrd, Stone Temple Pilots, Guns n’ Roses, Kings of Leon. DJs on weekends and regular live music. All of it rock based. This is a BAR. No munchies here. “Alice In Chains totally peaked in ‘96”. There is a beer garden, but this does not get used that often and then only in the summer. The dirt and faded frontage means this is not a fancy bar by any stretch. But its relaxed atmosphere and lack of pretence means you can have a proper drink and a chat. Dubliner Hafnarstræti 4 Saturday, 00:52 850 1000-1700 750 Like the bar from ‘Pirates Of The Caribbean’, but without the fist fights and attractive people. Clichés, the works. Wooden tables, candles in whiskey bottles, framed Irish rugby shirts. Weekend dads on their off weekends, drunks who wish they were writers and the not-so-bonny lasses who love them. TROUBADOR ALERT, LEVEL 5!!!! MAN THE HARPOONS!! RIG THE LINES!! Soups and sandwiches during the day. Picture a pub. Then picture a lot of people in leather jackets. Now, go to Dubliner. Buy yourself a drink. While you’re doing stuff for me, could you get me a Mars bar and an orange soda? Thanks. An Icelander walks into a pub … We really love drinking (who doesn’t though?). It’s part of what makes life on the island vaguely bearable, and it is a fun way to kill some time. Drinking at bars is especially fun, as it will often expose you to people and situations you wouldn’t find drinking at home with the curtains drawn (unless you live in a bar). BUT THERE ARE SO MANY BARS! HOW DO WE KNOW WHICH ONE TO GO TO? Yes, that question has plagued us too. So we got the crazy idea of doing something about it. We thought: there can’t be that many bars in 101 Reykja- vík. Why don’t we pay every single one of them a visit and write down some pertinent info and what we think? So we ganged together a bunch of our fun-loving writers and their as- sociates and divided the places be- tween them. Our research revealed that there are well over fifty places in 101 Reykjavík that can be classified as bars (depending on your definition, of course—we made our own, which you may read somewhere on this spread), and we strived to include every single one of them (if you find your favourite one (or the one you manage) slipped by us, do send us a note and we’ll do it jus- tice in a future issue), and for a glorious five days we worked hard at buying one beer at every single one of them and re- laying our experiences through words and Gs. Of course you might not agree. Of course we might have visited at the wrong hour, or maybe our tastes just differ greatly from yours. Or we might be wrong. That is to be expected, this thing is for entertainment and informa- tional purposes, and it is meant to incite discourse more than anything. And if it helps you find a new bar you love, then that’s all the better. LEGEND Time visited Price of beer Price of single + mixer Price of shot Mood/atmosphere Interior decor Average patron Style of music Munchies Quote of Note Identifying characteristics In short Rating out of five Icons courtesy of Joseph Wain at glyphish.com. Thanks to Andri at vefstofan.is

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