Reykjavík Grapevine - 15.08.2014, Side 28

28 The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 12 — 2014FOOD
Before you can name your child in Iceland, you have to run the name by the highly
conservative Icelandic Naming Committee. But that’s where the micromanaging stops.
You can name your farm Saurbær (“Shitville”), name your horse Hátíð (“Festival”), and
name your streets Barmahlíð (“Bosom Hill”) or Völundarhús (“Labyrinth”). Bar and
restaurant names are no exception. Here’s an easy-to-digest overview of some of the
best and worst of Icelandic restaurant names, inspired by a listicle we read
called “Top 5 Reasons For Top 5 Lists.”
Words
Ragnar Egilsson
Breakfast
Brunch
Lunch
Happy Hour
Dinner
K-Bar is a gastro pub with a Korean, Japa-
nese, Icelandic inspired kitchen and quirky
cocktails. We have eight icelandic craft
beers on tap and over 100 types in bottles.
Open all day from breakfast to late night
snacks. K-Bar is located at Laugavegur 74.
Ask your reception how to find us or find us
on facebook.com/kbarreykjavik
Top 5 Questionable
Bar/Restaurant Names
5. Harlem
It’s closed now, and it was good while it
lasted. But when you have a watering
hole for white hipster kids in the whitest
country this side of Spitsbergen, then
maybe “Harlem” isn’t the most descriptive
name. Even with the heroic effort of your
American colleagues in gentrifying the
neighbourhood.
4. Gelataria Bada Bing
It's an ice cream store named after a
fictional mobster strip club. Seemingly
“Ima-beata-my-wifea-with-a-flail-made-
of-spaghetti-and-meataballsa” was taken.
3. Austur-Indíafjelagið
Icelandic for “The East India Company”
with friendly old-timey spelling—it's named
after the company that gave the world
colonialism and the salt tax, among other
delights. Gandhi went on to abolish that
tax through hunger strikes. Incidentally,
the other main Indian restaurant in
Reykjavík is called “Gandhi.”
2. Kofi Tómasar Frænda
Icelandic for ‘Uncle Tom's Cabin,’ a book
whose legacy is the slapstick equivalent of
tossing your friend a beer and accidentally
hitting him in the face. The bar goes by the
name Kofinn (“The Cabin”) these days.
1. Kung Fu Sticks & Sushi
A sushi place named after a Chinese
martial art, illustrated with a font that I
hope was wiped from the face of the earth
when Photoshop committed seppuku by
jumping off The Great Wall into a pot of
Thai Curry.
Top 5 Most Confusing
Restaurant Names
5. Chuck Norris Grill
Holy shit, did the Hollywood actor open
a burger place in Iceland? That’s cool.
Oh, is it just an Icelandic restaurant
piggybacking on an internet meme from
2005 while begging for a lawsuit? Never
mind, then.
4. Café Ray Liotta
Wow, they’ve really cut the budget for the
witness protection program. Oh wait, it’s
not owned or operated by Ray Liotta. Also,
it's a bar rather than a café—I’m not even
sure they have a coffee machine back
there. This, too, is a house of lies.
3. Energia
No, they don’t sell shady Chinese
electronics or Ukrainian nutritional
supplements—it’s a restaurant—although
the menu here is more ethnically inclusive
than Phife Dawg in “Electric Relaxation.”
They serve variation of Italian, Thai, Indian,
Chinese, Mexican and New York dishes,
almost all of them containing chicken
and red onion. The name indicates that
what they sell roughly qualifies as fuel for
sustaining a human body.
2. Lobster Hut
It’s a food truck. Definitely not a hut. And,
despite the tagline, they serve neither
lobster (it’s langoustine) nor "Icelandic
cousins."
1. Confusion
Named after the lesser-known brother
of the famous Chinese philosopher. The
brother is best known for wearing gloves
on his feet and always picking “leapfrog”
as his favourite animal. It’s some kind of
fusion restaurant, it seems.
Top 5 Blandest
Restaurant Names
5. Café Aroma
You know how most things have an
aroma? They serve things like that.
4. Café Paris
This is second cockiest name of a French-
themed business in Reykjavík and by far
the blandest. At least the one in the top
place has a kind of crazed obliviousness
to it. “Café Paris” is only awesome when
embroidered in cursive on cheap souvenir
t-shirts outside The Louvre.
3. Lemon
Because their market research indicated
that "lemons” were generally considered
fresh by consumers and detergent
manufacturers. They don’t sell beef, so
the restaurant they borrowed the concept
from helpfully brought them some from
Denmark.
2. Brooklyn
Not content with the trend of basing all
restaurant design in Iceland on Brooklyn
hipster interior design trends, they’ve
decided to double down on the name. I
can only assume their signature dish is a
Coney Island white fish boiled in Gowanus
Canal water, served in a used Chinese
takeout box collected from a Brownsville
crime scene.
1. Le Bistro
Half-assed French tourist traps should
think twice before literally calling
themselves "The Restaurant.”.
Top 5 Best Restaurant Names
5. Salthúsið
Maybe they're hoarding all the salt that
Austur-Indíafjelagið is taxing. Anyway, salt
tastes good and I like when restaurants
use the “-húsið” (“-house”) suffix.
4. Fiskfélagið
Fish Company. Constantly confused with
"Fish Market.” Snazzy and original, but not
obnoxiously so.
3. Sushisamba
A fun name that invokes the Brazilian-
Japanese fusion very well. Too bad they
stole it from a well-established American
restaurant chain (maybe they could share
a lawyer with Chuck Norris Grill?).
2. Dill
Short and sweet. If you like Nordic cuisine
then that name should tell you everything
you need to know. Twice as handy if you
hate that style of cooking.
1. Aktu-taktu
It’s just such a perfectly descriptive name
for a drive-thru (the name could translate
as "Drive-N-Grab"), plus it rhymes! It is
owned by the less charmingly named
food conglomerate Foodco (a name
which has the curious effect of making
all professional chefs I know spit on the
ground).
The Icelandic
Restaurant
Name Listicle
Think we should feature more vapid listicles, like what you find online? Why not
write one and send it to us? Do your worst: editor@grapevine.is