Reykjavík Grapevine - 04.12.2015, Page 52

By Shruthi Basappa
20
SKY Restaurant and Bar
Ingólfsstræti 1,
101 Reykjavik
skylounge.is
www.facebook.com/skyreykjavik
Tel: +354 595 8545
Buffet runs Fri-Sun, through Decem-
ber
Price for Christmas Menu: 6,850 ISK
(drinks not included)
CHRISTMAS BUFFETS:
SKY
Restaurant
and Bar
The síld is luscious, the mustard jolts
you awake, and the carpaccio-style
hangikjöt welcomes you with all those
smoky notes. Even the accompanying
sauces are full of character and nuance.
Not a single grey-green Ora pea is pres-
ent—you’ll have to sample that staple
stalwart of Icelandic festivities later.
Just bold flavours, straddling the past
and the present.
This was the opener at Ský Restau-
rant and Bar, where my husband and I
had come to sample the festive holiday
menu. Ský sits on the 8th floor of
Center Hotel in downtown Reykjavík,
offering stunning views of the city, sea
and Harpa—surely a great firework-
watching spot come New Year’s Eve.
On a Saturday night, the place was full
of families, young couples and compa-
nies on their annual night of merry-
making.
For Christmas, the chefs at Ský
eschew their usually modern approach
for a more traditional one.
We started with that memorable
house-made pickled herring, smoked
salmon and smoked lamb before mov-
ing onto the main course of textbook-
perfect lamb tenderloin with a velvety
red wine sauce. Dessert was another
ode to the season, a warm cinnamon
apple pie.
As we walked out, we were struck
by how decadent our meal had been,
how casual the space and how atten-
tive the service. We woke up the next
day still talking about that herring
(shout out to Eduardo the chef and
Anita our waitress!). Ský’s holiday
menu offers straightforward, unpre-
tentious classics, at a great value—it
also grants an excellent opportunity to
enjoy the city from a novel viewpoint,
in a warm but modern setting by the
harbour. And, seriously, don’t forget to
try that herring.
By Ragnar Egilsson, photos by Art Bicnick
The Icelandic Christmas buffet is all
about tradition.
December is a time where you head
out with your family or—more often—
your colleagues or a group of friends, to
attack holiday-themed all-you-can-eat
buffets. The season just isn’t complete
without it. It’s about preserving history
in mounds of gloopy salads, smoked
meats, pickled herring, cured salmon
and all the rest. It’s basically about pre-
serving the history of preserved food.
We like that tradition, and we like
where it seems to be going at certain es-
tablishments, as our tastes and palates
evolve with the times. So, we sent our
team of intrepid food writers to tell you
about four of them. This time around,
we tried to focus on restaurants that
have recently started offering a buffet,
or are doing things a little differently
from the rest.
Every year, the buffet changes just a
little bit; occasionally we may be look-
ing at the birth of new traditions with
serious staying power, although I sus-
pect that in most cases, we’re simply
feeding the Icelandic hunger for nov-
elty. But even attempting to enjoy an
insipid novelty dish that will be gone
come Xmas 2016—it sure beats life
as a foodie back in the days when the
“classic” Icelandic dishes were being
invented. A time of unsalted pickled or-
gan meat and slow death.
Michael Pollan, peddler of paternal-
istic platitudes, tells us to not “eat any-
thing your great-grandmother wouldn’t
recognize as food.”
I'm Icelandic and so was my great-
grandmother. So let’s look at what that
means for me:
- No fruit, except canned
tangerines for Christmas
- No spices other than the
occasional pinch of salt
- No tacos
- No eating fish that looks
like it is of the Devil
Globalization and modernity has been
kind to Iceland. Non-seasonal, indus-
trialized Frankenfarming brought to
our doorstep from fields in distant
tropical countries enabled 20th century
Icelanders to allow themselves luxuries
like “tomatoes” and “not suffering from
scurvy so much.” The move to modern-
ization has been so persistent that we
are even seeing some exotic additions
to the Christmas buffet—the holiest of
holies!
In this year’s restaurant roster you’ll
find stone-cold classics like smoked
lamb, but you might also come across
less traditional fare, like gravlax maki,
mandarin sorbet, apple pies, and ba-
calao with polenta.
Not that any of this really matters.
The purpose of office Christmas par-
ties is to have drunken conversations
with your boss that start with “Do you
want to know how I really feel about
you and your fat family?” Who has time
to eat when you just barely crammed
yourself into that mistletoe print dress
and there’s a hot intern to seduce? The
bartender just went to get more glasses
for that disgusting cinnamon-Baileys
shot—quick, see if you can’t grab that
bottle of brandy!
The point is, it’s not for me (or Mi-
chael Pollan) to say how you should cel-
ebrate the holidays. That’s for Satan to
decide. All hail our Dark Lord.
THE ICELANDIC CHRISTMAS BUFFET
- EXPLAINED, EXPLORED, EXPANDED
Organic bistro
EST 2006
Tryggvagata 11,Volcano house
Tel:511-1118
Mon-Sun 12:00-21:00
www.fishandchips.is
FJÖRUKRÁIN