I’m nuts for coffee. And not just a little bit. It has become the theme through which I move through the world. I choose where to travel based on cafes and roasters I want to check out. One such place was Iceland. I had been hearing that Reykjavík Roasters was the go to spot for coffee lovers, and I wanted to find out whether it was just buzz from Starbucks-drinking camera-toting tourists, or whether it was a worthy pilgrimage for a coffee snoot.
I didn’t have to try very hard to convince my wife, but she insisted we visit ‘all the mountains in Iceland’. We popped over for a couple weeks and lined up a camper van.
Reykjavík Roaster WAS worthy. And it turns out, there are some pretty amazing cafes in some of the tiny remote towns around the country. The very best coffee we had was in a delightfully quirky cafe called Gisli Erikur Helgi in Dalviq, a bit north of Akureyri. I wasn’t expecting much, being so remote, and was floored by a cappuccino nearly as good as if it was made by a national barista champ.
Another surprise find was the coffee bar at a restaurant called Nordic Restaurant in Seydisfjordur. They also happened to serve us a meal that is still among the top 3 we’ve had in our lives.
We discovered that Iceland’s coffee standards are just a notch higher than North America’s. As such, there’s not as much of a divide between 2nd and 3rd wave.
My wife and I had the most incredible time touring the country and we’ve been back two times since. I was able to contribute my two cents to the collective wisdom hosted in Google Maps through Local Guides, hopefully contributing to the experience had by other coffee loving travellers.
