Café Loki

Café Loki, or Kaffi Loki, is a traditional Icelandic home-style restaurant directly across the street from Hallgrímskirkja, and it is one of the easiest places in the city to try traditional Icelandic home cooking without paying fine-dining prices. Food is prepared on site and the restaurant describes its prices as friendly, which in Reykjavik is a welcome promise.

The menu is built around Icelandic plates, which give you several tastes at once. The Loki plate features slices of dark rye bread topped with mashed fish, a classic Icelandic comfort food, while the Baldur plate comes with rye bread ice cream, an unusual dessert made with Icelandic rye bread. There is a vegetarian dish, and for something sweet, the Icelandic pancake with skyr and caramel sauce is a good way to try skyr, the thick cultured dairy product that is part of everyday life in Iceland.

Café Loki is open every day from 08:00 to 22:00, with the kitchen serving until 21:30, so it works for breakfast, a light lunch after climbing the church tower, or an early dinner. It does not take reservations: seating is first come, first served, so expect to wait a little at peak lunchtime in summer, when visitors to Hallgrímskirkja fill the tables. Arriving before noon or in the mid-afternoon usually helps.

The café suits families, solo travellers and anyone curious about Icelandic food who would rather start with familiar textures than with fermented shark. Portions are designed for tasting, so share a plate and a dessert if you want to try more. It is an informal place and a good spot to warm up on a cold day.

If you want to try the Icelandic specialities that have a reputation for being challenging, ask the staff what is on offer that day; otherwise the plates provide a gentle and tasty introduction to the national kitchen.

Because it is across the street from Hallgrímskirkja, Café Loki is the obvious place to eat before or after a visit to the church. Skólavörðustígur, with its shops and galleries, leads downhill from the church towards Laugavegur, and the Þingholt district's quiet streets are just to the west.