Sægreifinn

Saegreifinn, or Sea Baron, is a local rustic seafood restaurant on the pier in Reykjavik. Serving lobster soup and well, barbecued minke whale. Strangely, it’s also right beside the whale watching pier. Open from 11.30am until late.

It's a great place to taste the riches of the Atlantic ocean. Iceland is a proud fishing nation and knows how to handle their food. You can have a go at all kinds of seafood that you wouldn't dare trying anywhere else.

We definately recommend the bold, rich stew, featuring the local lobster — which is, in form, somewhere between a very large shrimp and a very small lobster, with most of the meat in the tail.

The concoction, called humarsupa, is straightforward, traditional, glaringly honest, delicious and the first thing you should eat when you arrive in town. Although the lobster is as local as it gets (it’s fished and cooked throughout Iceland, and featured in many if not most restaurants), other ingredients are hard to come by here, so the vegetable content is pretty much fixed at celery, red pepper and tomato. But the distinctive Northern European flavor profile — the soup is slightly sweet, with a bit of cream and hints of cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and maybe coriander — doesn’t change, and neither does the generous amount of high-quality lobster.

Located in Geirsgata 8, in Reykjavik’s old harbour close to city center. Tel.: +354 553 1500, E-mail: seabaron8@gmail.com