Plokkfiskur is Iceland's great comfort dish, a warm mash of flaked cod or haddock with potato, onion and a white bechamel sauce. It is traditionally served with dark rye bread and butter.
Where to eat it: 3 restaurants across 1 city.
Plokkfiskur began as a thrifty way to use up leftover boiled fish and potatoes, a staple of Icelandic home kitchens for generations. The name comes from the verb to pluck or flake, describing how the fish is broken into the mash. Modern Reykjavik kitchens have dressed it up with bechamel and cheese, but the soul of the dish stays the same: cod, potato and rye bread on a cold day. Cafe Loki and harbour rooms keep the traditional version on the menu year-round.
Common allergens: Fish, Gluten, Milk
Tip from the editors. Crush the potatoes rather than mashing them; the contrast between chunks of potato and flaked fish is what makes plokkfiskur honest rather than a fish pie filling.
Hofnin, The Harbour, fills a 1930s house on Geirsgata with family-run Icelandic seafood, a Reykjavik room for shellfish soup and plokkfiskur by the marina.
Signature: Shellfish soup, Plokkfiskur
Order: The shellfish soup, or plokkfiskur, the creamy Icelandic fish-and-potato stew.
Tip: Window tables look out on Mount Esja across the water. Popular, so book ahead in summer.
Family-run Icelandic kitchen across from Hallgrimskirkja on Lokastigur serving meat soup, fermented shark and rye-bread ice cream from 8am to 10pm daily.
Why locals love it: Most visitors photograph Hallgrimskirkja and leave, missing the small cafe opposite that serves the city's most accessible traditional Icelandic plates.
Tip: The easiest place to try rye bread with mashed fish and rye-bread ice cream. Walk-in only.
Iceland's oldest restaurant, founded 1935 by the Grandi harbour; Axel Oskarsson now serves fish and chips, fish soup and breakfast in the green wooden hut.
Why locals love it: Billed as Iceland's oldest restaurant, this 1935 harbour canteen sits among working docks where fishermen, not tourists, fill the tables for the day's catch.
Tip: The catch of the day, eaten where the fishermen eat, is the order. Open from 08:00 by the water.
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