Reykjavík Grapevine - jan 2021, Qupperneq 29

Alcohol reform
Guessing the alcohol tax would
make for a great drinking game
if only it weren’t so steep. Cooped
up at home with people you may
or may not like are conditions
ripe to drown one's miseries and
no amount of tax was deemed too
steep to tide over the pandemic.
Unsurprisingly, alcohol consump-
tion was through the roof in 2020.
While monopoly is our mantra sec-
ond only to ‘þetta reddast’, the rela-
tionship with alcohol here is a curi-
ous thing indeed. You can only buy
alcohol from state-owned stores.
You cannot buy alcohol online lo-
cally. It is illegal. One can shop for
spirits from international stores.
That is legal. We’ve been through
enough, just lower the taxes, allow
restaurants and wine bars to sell
alcohol online and usher in modern
reform already.
Cloud kitchens
At the peak of the pandemic, while
the rest of the world seemed to
be baking, we were busy pickling.
Granted, one couldn’t turn a cor-
ner in their kitchen without a sour-
dough starter staring them in the
face, but kimchi kitchens seemed
to mushroom everywhere and so-
cial media pages were hotbeds of
booming activity (Veterans like
the Filipino kitchen, Pinoy Taste,
were well poised for pandemic con-
ditions with their authentic fare).
Unsurprising given that the barrier
to entry for home chef’s and food
enthusiasts is so steep in Iceland.
If the authorities would simplify
regulations and invested in prep
kitchen facilities like Eldstæðið,
we’d see diverse additions to the
culinary landscape.
Digital and delivery
innovation
For a small country, Iceland can be
painfully slow to adapt to change.
Globally, third-party platforms
surged ahead leaving restaurants
overwhelmed with deliveries.The
absence of a robust delivery in-
frastructure here is telling. Both
restaurant self-delivery and digital
platforms need an overhaul (early
adopter Fönix has done notably
well in this aspect). Customers
have moved their lives indoors and
online and this would be a positive
for the industry. Meanwhile, we can
continue to enjoy the discounts of-
fered on take-aways to take away
the sting of navigating cumber-
some websites.
Seasonal restaurants
It is easy to forget that Reykjavík
isn’t Iceland. The loss of tourism
has hit places outside the capital
deeply. Reliant on both foreign la-
bour and footfalls, many like Fish-
erman’s in Suðureyri completely
shut shop for the foreseeable future.
While the success of ‘ferðum in-
nanlands’ brightened the summer,
it was quickly overshadowed by ris-
ing infections that followed. What
this summer will bring remains to
be seen. Veterans like Slippurinn
and Norðaustur are tangible cul-
tural treasures that need to be pro-
tected.
Pop-ups and locals
In Reykjavík, restaurants outside
the capital area proved success-
ful with their local clientele. They
also became mobile. Deig travelled
around Iceland with their baked
goods. Fine opened a take-away
only window in Hafnarfjörður
and, quelling rumours of a closure,
have opened their doors again on
Rauðarárstígur.
Slippurinn regularly extended
its reach, birthing an off-shoot
burger joint that turned into a
gourmet delicatessen. Folks from
Mat Bar and Makake joined hands
and brought us Dragon Dimsum,
a six-week pop-up that proved so
successful that it is now a steady
fixture. The 160-seater Skelfisk-
markaðurinn has successfully
been turned into street food hall,
Götumarkaðurinn. Gandhi is now
an Indian-ish lounge bar at a new
location and Chickpea at Hallvei-
garstígur is keeping the vegetarian
high-street food flag high.
Natural wine bar Mikki Refur,
which has been quietly plying us
with bubbles and soup from none
other than chef Gunnar Karl, will
offer wine-paired pop-ups in 2021.
The bad boys of Vínstúkan Tíu
Sopar are working on a hush-hush
restaurant-bar-café at the renovat-
ed Radisson Blu 1919.
Bottom Line
History is proof that periods of
hardship, war and prohibitions are
almost always followed by exuber-
ant freewheeling, cue the roaring
20’s and swinging 60’s. The pan-
demic is changing life in tangible
ways. While travel may be a dis-
tant reality, adventures are to be
had right here, right now, to far
away distant lands, to the corners
of one’s own land and to see and
taste a future yet to be imagined.
And it’s yours for the taking at your
favourite restaurants.
29The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 01— 2021
Kitchen porn
Food
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