Reykjavík Grapevine - 07.12.2012, Blaðsíða 38

by Ragnar Egilsson
Café Loki takes a little from the first
category and a little from the second
one. This is a wise move, as Café Loki
is ingeniously located right at the base
of the tourist beacon, Hallgrímskirkja.
Arts and crafts on the first floor and a
café/restaurant serving traditional food
on the second floor, how could they
fail?
They don’t. It’s a simple place with a
small selection consisting of a daily spe-
cial, which is usually fish in some form
or another or one of three other warm
staples, the traditional Icelandic lamb
stew (“kjötsúpa”), a fish stew (“plok-
kfiskur”) and a vegetarian plate (there’s
no specific term for it as Icelanders
didn’t start eating their vegetables until
a couple of decades ago). Other than
that, it’s mostly open-face sandwiches
served on flatbread or rye.
I ordered the vegetarian plate (1690
ISK), which consisted of lightly baked
rutabaga and other root vegetables,
served with quinoa, greens, feta and
pumpkin seeds. It was too bland for my
tastes, but seemed at least to be genu-
inely healthy. As a side, I picked some
dung-smoked trout from Mývatnssveit,
served on flatbread.
My partner in crime chose the
Icelandic platter #1 (1990 ISK) with
smoked trout on rye bread, fish stew
on rye bread, head cheese, and an Ice-
landic style bean salad (peas in a white
mystery sauce).
I repeat: This is very simple food, so
don’t expect any wild ideas or culinary
epiphanies. Having said that, they
do justice to the traditional dishes at
Café Loki. The fish stew is the usual,
creamy mess made with shredded fish,
potatoes and onions. This wasn’t quite
the best plokkfiskur I’ve had in Iceland
but definitely above par.
The trout was excellent. It was
unusually subtle for a dung-smoked
trout and much fresher than I’d dared
to hope. Top marks for that.
But the real surprise was the
flatbread and rye. It was quite simply
the best I’ve had in Reykjavík, outside
of a domestic kitchen. The rye bread
was not as dense as I’m used to and
more like a loaf of spice bread than
the banana bread texture I’m used to,
and it was light and not too sweet. The
flatbread was even better. The slightly
bitter flavour and overpowering taste
of rye flour usually puts me off, but
this one was not the usual dry, pock-
marked, dark-brown slab and actually
tasted of something other than sod
roof frugality.
Due to the quality of the rye bread,
I got my partner to brave the rye bread
ice cream (640 ISK), which is a Café
Loki’s specialty heavily featured on
their website. Most Icelanders will only
be familiar with rye bread desserts in
the form of “brauðsúpa,” a traditional
rye bread pudding made with sultanas,
sugar and water, served with whipped
cream. Brauðsúpa is an acquired
taste and one that I never managed to
acquire, but this ice cream has made
a believer out of me. It’s served in a
small cup with a dollop of whipped
cream. It’s obviously pretty chewy, but
the texture is fun in small doses and
the flavour is nothing like rye bread;
it’s closer to coconut and chocolate.
Heartily recommended, although I
must says that I would have liked to see
them serve me a fresh scoop instead
of something that had obviously been
standing in the freezer for a day.
While it may not make the top ten
of the best restaurants in Reykjavík,
Café Loki does serve exactly the kind
of food I recommend to tourists when
they ask me about traditional Icelandic
cuisine. Yes, they have that disgusting
fermented shark and all the usual bells
and whistles, but they also know how to
please this little Icelander.
Loki Laufabrauðsson
Café Loki
Lokastígur 28
101 Reykjavík
Tel: +354 466 2828
http://www.textil.is/ENGLISH/
Mon-Sat: 9am – 9pm
Sundays: 11am – 9pm
What we think
Solid grub, low in pretention and
surprisingly high in quality. A little
bland, but true to form
Flavour:
Icelandic farmer munch
Ambiance:
Plain and dull, but a good place to
grab lunch
Service:
Basic café service, no complaints
Price for 2 (with drinks):
10-12.000 ISK
There are four basic types of Icelandic cuisine: 1) The mythical historical revisionist food that is only really
eaten once a year by the vast majority of Icelanders (pickled testicles, shark, head cheese) but was presented as
a millennia old cultural institution about a hundred years ago; 2) the soul food of the older generation (greasy
lamb sausages, fish balls, blood pudding), well represented by Mamma Steina a little further down from Café
Loki; 3) the stuff that the younger generation eats (sushi, pasta, some of the old mainstays, the generic western
hodgepodge diet); and 4) the style of New Nordic cuisine particular to Iceland, which uses local ingredients but
few of the traditional techniques and is only really found in high end restaurants.
F D
For your mind, body and soul
RAGNAR EGILSSON
ALÍSA KALYANOVA
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