A Guide to Reykjavik, as Wonderfully Weird as Ever
Almost a decade after the Icelandic city was forced to reinvent itself, it’s now a health-and-wellness destination.
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As a point of divergence between the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates, Iceland is home to more strange beauty than most places: snow-covered peaks, black-sand beaches, skyscraping geysers and underground caves glittering with kaleidoscopic stalactites. But the country’s drama isn’t contained to its landscapes. After the 2008 banking collapse, the government imposed a steep exit tax to keep investors from moving their funds abroad. Forced to turn inward, Icelanders instead backed domestic projects like boutique hotels, locavore eateries and designer stores. In so doing, they infused Reykjavik — a compact city of just over 122,000 — with a truly global feel.
Nearly 10 years after that financial disaster, Reykjavik is remaking itself once again, this time as a health-and-wellness destination. The famous Blue Lagoon, with its man-made geothermal pool rich in silica and minerals, is opening the Retreat at Blue Lagoon Iceland, a hotel and day spa that will offer ground-level suites attached to private pools, and a menu of mud masks and in-water massages. Then there’s Verandi, a sustainable brand whose handmade body scrub contains sea salt and recycled coffee grounds — an enterprise that offsets the ecological strain of so many eager visitors.
STAY
CenterHotel Thingholt
The hotel, located just off Reykjavik’s main thoroughfare, Laugavegur, is a refreshing departure from the usual Icelandic fare of blandly Scandinavian interiors: Here, Fendi chairs and plush Poliform sofas sit on a floor of black ostrich leather, while a cocoon-like pendant hangs from the ceiling. Room No. 415 has an unfettered view of the Esja, the nearby volcanic mountain range.
Sandhotel
This cluster of upcycled buildings and new structures united in the hotel-as-village model incorporates a street-facing haberdashery opened in 1918, as well as the bakery Sandholt, manned by a team of fifth-generation bakers and loved for its hearty rye, kamut and quinoa breads. Upstairs, the cozy 53 guest rooms are accented with art from the local gallery I8, which represents some of the country’s best-known contemporary artists, including Olafur Eliasson and Ragnar Kjartansson.
EAT
Dill
Ragnar Eiriksson, the chef of Iceland’s first Michelin-starred restaurant, cycles to work so he can stop to collect rose petals, yarrow and sorrel for his seasonal five- and seven-course menus. Diners sit nearly knee-to-knee in former stables from the early 1900s, made over by the local designer Halfdan Pedersen, who transplanted some of the décor from an old farmhouse up north. Among Eiriksson’s many adventurous dishes — which are plated on hand-thrown ceramics from local makers Postulina and are inspired by regional comfort food — is his delicate smoked haddock, which sits atop a creamy mash of potatoes whipped with skyr, a mild Icelandic yogurt.
Vinberid
Icelanders love their nammi, or candy — most, in fact, grow up sipping soda through a licorice straw. In addition to lollipops and pastilles, this 41-year-old sugar emporium offers such sentimental favorites as thristur — chocolate-dipped caramel bars with salty licorice bites inside — and Opal lozenges, packaged in the distinctive Op Art boxes designed by the painter Atli Mar Arnason.
SEE
The Marshall House
American tax dollars helped build this herring factory in 1948 under the post-World War II Marshall Plan. It reopened in March as an assemblage of exhibition spaces for previously itinerant artist-run collectives, some of which were struggling to survive post 2008. Tenants include Nylistasafnid and Kling & Bang gallery, as well as Studio Olafur Eliasson, which shows sculptures and installations by the celebrated Berlin- and Copenhagen-based Icelandic artist. The ground-floor Marshall Restaurant + Bar serves simple but well-prepared seafood dishes such as ocean perch crudo topped with citrus and capers. Grandagardur 20, 101.
SHOP
Steinunn
Located on a blustery stretch of Reykjavik’s harbor, this former fishnet repair shop is now filled with plush knitted jackets that take their cue from traditional Icelandic men’s wear, along with lavishly ruffled wraps and wool dresses trimmed with lightweight panels designed to dance in the air. Steinunn Sigurdardottir returned to her native Iceland to launch the brand after stints at Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein and Gucci, and considers her line just the latest participant in Iceland’s centuries-old knitwear tradition.
Hildur Yeoman
Inside this small, newly opened boutique, dresses patterned with Yeoman’s delightfully dizzying abstract prints hang alongside sculptural shoes and jewelry from fellow local artisans. A fashion designer who studied fine art, Yeoman is a favorite of Edda Gudmundsdottir, best known as Bjork’s stylist. For inspiration, Yeoman says she looks to the women in her life, such as a sorceress friend and her great-grandmother, who fled New Jersey with a motorcycle gang.
Kirsuberjatred
How to tell if a shop has given in to Iceland’s tourism surge? Look for the ubiquitous stuffed toy puffins, Iceland’s best known bird. This conscientious objector, a cooperative of 11 female artisans working in a former stationery shop from the 19th century, specializes instead in high-end design objects, jewelry and billowy women’s wear. Among the standouts in the airy showroom are Valdis Harrysdottir’s sustainable bowls made of radish paper and Margret Gudnadottir’s kooky feathered music boxes, which play Icelandic folk songs.
An article last Sunday about sites to visit in Reykjavik, Iceland, referred incorrectly to the country’s location in relationship to the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates. Iceland is situated at a divergent boundary between the plates, not at their point of collision. (There is no such point along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.)
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