Reykjavík Grapevine - 05.07.2013, Qupperneq 40

40The Reykjavík Grapevine
Best Of Reykjavík
Ice Cream Ísbúðin Valdís
Taste The Happy!
Iceland meets Italy in Ísbúðin Valdís’ kickass ice cream
It had only been open for three weeks when Ísbúðin
Valdís was making 800 litres of ice cream every three
days, 1,400 waffle cones a day, and had a line of cus-
tomers spilling into the street for twelve hours straight.
That fateful June 23rd (yes, just this past one), owner
Gylfi Þór Valdimarsson knew his little dream was a big
success.
“My plan was to have four employees and for me
to be here from 8:00 to 16:00 and then go home,” Gylfi
says, grinning ear to ear under the iconic Boater hat
that he and his employees sport. “I’m working sixteen
hours a day and I have twenty employees, ten of them
working during the day.”
Gylfi, who is a trained chef, had been living in Den-
mark for the past twelve years when, a year and a half
ago, he became interested in making Italian-style ge-
lato and sorbet. “Everyone in Iceland eats this soft-
serve ice cream from a machine but they’ve opened a
lot of gelato shops in Denmark and it’s just much bet-
ter,” he says. With this in mind, he began writing down
his concept to open a gelato shop with a twist—let
the customers see behind the scenes to watch the ice
cream making in process. He came home and opened
his shop on June 1.
His gelatos are made with a combination of Ice-
landic dairy and Italian binding agents to help the ice
cream hold and keep an authentic consistency, but the
flavours are distinctly local. “Icelanders love the Re-
ese’s, Oreo and cookie ice creams so I make those for
them,” Gylfi says. The other spin is the waffle cones
are baked freshly every day. “Italians would never eat
their gelato or sorbet from a cone, only from a cup.”
He collaborates with his Facebook fans to get new
flavour ideas to keep the fridge in constant rotation.
“We take requests on our page all the time, then we
make it and post that their ice cream is now in the
store,” Gylfi says. Prior to my visit, I had been tipped
off about a crazy rhubarb ice cream, but that was all
run out. The lovely server who indulged my desire to
sample every flavour even began tipping me off about
secret flavours they had stocked up in the back—tira-
misu, white chocolate, and liquorice. I told her to bring
them on.
Facebook has been really good to the shop in terms
of promotion as well, as he has not put out a single
advertisement. When reminded that he has only been
open twenty-four days, he pauses and then bursts out
into giddy laughter. “When I hired my staff I told them
I had no clue if it would be a fiasco and I’d lose all my
money, or if it would just be a job for me to live on, or
if it would be a success,” Gylfi says. “Right now it’s a
big success. This space is already getting too small for
me.”
As lines began to form out of the shop, Gylfi’s staff
hurriedly called him back to the floor and I left with a
classic single scoop of vanilla. And with vanilla that
good, Gylfi could make every flavour under the moon
and sun. Rebecca Louder
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