RFK Cuisine · New Nordic · Reykjavik
Best New Nordic Restaurants in Reykjavik 2026
New Nordic · Reykjavik · 7 rooms ranked · Updated June 2026
Compiled by the Restaurants for Kings editorial team · Published June 20, 2026 · Updated June 20, 2026
Iceland holds exactly three Michelin stars, and all three go to New Nordic kitchens within an hour of Reykjavik. That is the whole proposition of dining here: a tiny capital, a brutal larder of wild lamb, cold-water langoustine, skyr and foraged herbs, and a generation of chefs who decided to cook the island instead of importing France. The result is some of the most distinctive food in Europe, expensive but rarely dull. These are the seven rooms — six in the city, one a planned drive to the Blue Lagoon — that carry New Nordic best in 2026, ranked on the cooking, the room and what the bill buys, with the dish to order and how to get a table.
1.Dill
Iceland's first and most consistent Michelin star, a star again in 2026 — book Dill for the benchmark of Icelandic New Nordic cooking.
Dill, above the Mikkeller bar on Hverfisgata 12, is where modern Icelandic cooking grew up. Gunnar Karl Gíslason opened it in 2009, and in 2017 it became the first restaurant in the country to win a Michelin star; it holds one again in the 2026 guide. The seven-to-ten-course tasting is built entirely from the island — cod, wild lamb, langoustine, skyr, dulse, birch and crowberry — and finishes with the rye-bread ice cream that has been on the menu, in one form or another, for years because the kitchen has never bettered it. The room is small, low-lit and run with quiet confidence, the chefs delivering and explaining the dishes themselves. Expect around ISK 25,000 to 30,000 a head before wine. For the single most reliable New Nordic dinner in Iceland, this is the table; book online a week or two ahead.
Book direct online; the wild lamb, the cured cod, and the rye-bread ice cream to finish.
2.ÓX
Eleven seats, one sitting, sixteen courses of aged Icelandic produce — book ÓX for the most personal starred meal in Reykjavik.
ÓX is the room behind the room: a small counter hidden behind the Sümac dining room on Laugavegur, where chef Þráinn Freyr Vigfússon cooks a single seating a night for eleven guests, all arriving together at 19:00. It won a Michelin star in 2022 — the youngest Icelandic kitchen ever to do so — and keeps it in 2026. The sixteen-course menu leans on aging, curing and Icelandic beef, fish and dairy, served hand-to-hand across the counter so the whole evening feels like a dinner party with the chef. Expect around ISK 28,000 a head. The format means one strangers'-table experience rather than a private booking, which suits some occasions and not others. For the most intimate, most chef-driven meal in the city, reserve online well ahead — seats are scarce.
Reserve online for the single 19:00 seating; the aged Icelandic beef and the counter's cured-fish courses.
3.Moss
A starred tasting over the lava fields at the Blue Lagoon, worth the drive — book Moss for a New Nordic dinner that doubles as an outing.
Moss, the restaurant at The Retreat at the Blue Lagoon, is the third of Iceland's three stars and the only one outside Reykjavik proper, about a 45-minute drive south on the Reykjanes peninsula. Chef Aggi Sverrisson ran the one-star Texture in London for a decade before coming home, and his cooking pairs Icelandic produce — langoustine, lamb, Arctic char — with a lightness and the occasional Asian accent, eaten in a glass-walled room set over the moss-covered lava. The standard tasting runs upward of ISK 30,000 before wine; the Thursday and Friday wine-paired Kitchen Table for six is ISK 180,000. Volcanic activity has periodically affected the wider area, so confirm access when you book. For a destination dinner built around the landscape, plan the drive and make a night of it.
Book direct and confirm access; the langoustine, the Icelandic lamb, and the wine-paired Kitchen Table if you are not driving.
4.Matur og Drykkur
Old Icelandic recipes cooked seriously, halibut-head soup and all — book Matur og Drykkur for New Nordic with a sense of history.
Matur og Drykkur, in the Grandi harbour district, takes its name and its idea from a 1947 Icelandic cookbook, and chef Gísli Matthías Auðunsson reworks those old recipes into a modern tasting menu without sanding off their strangeness. The signature is a soup cooked from a whole halibut head, sweet and gelatinous and unlike anything else in the city; around it run dishes of cod, lamb and seaweed that treat heritage as a living thing rather than a museum piece. The room is bright and unfussy, the cooking far more ambitious than the prices suggest. Expect around ISK 12,000 to 14,000 for the tasting before drinks. For the most distinctly Icelandic meal on this list, and arguably the best value at the table, book online a few days out.
Book online; the halibut-head soup, the cod, and the cured-lamb courses.
5.Grillmarkaðurinn
Hrefna Rósa Sætran's grill-market in an old cinema, lava-rock walls and serious produce — book Grillmarkaðurinn for a livelier New Nordic night.
Grillmarkaðurinn — The Grill Market — sits in a former cinema near Lækjartorg, its walls clad in lava rock and timber, and it is the loudest, most sociable room on this list. Chef Hrefna Rósa Sætran, who also founded the seafood-focused Fiskmarkaðurinn, sources directly from named Icelandic farmers and fishermen and works most of it over an open grill: lobster tails, lamb, beef, langoustine and game, plus a famous mini-burger of beef, lamb and pork to start. It reads less like a tasting temple and more like a great modern brasserie that happens to take Icelandic sourcing seriously. Expect a tasting around ISK 20,000, or less à la carte. For a New Nordic dinner with energy and a long wine list, book online a few days ahead.
Book online; the grilled Icelandic lobster, the lamb, and the trio of mini-burgers to open.
6.Skál
The low-key small-plates room locals actually book, Icelandic produce and natural wine — go to Skál for New Nordic without the ceremony.
Skál started as a stall in the Hlemmur Mathöll food hall, picked up a Michelin Bib Gourmand in 2019, and has since moved to its own room at Njálsgata 1, with Thomas Lorentzen running the kitchen. The format is small plates rather than a fixed tasting: cured fish, raw scallop, grilled vegetables, lamb tartare, all built from Icelandic produce and meant to be shared over a bottle of natural wine. It is the room on this list most likely to feel like a night out rather than an event, and the one you can sometimes walk into. Plates run around ISK 2,400 each, so a full dinner lands well below the starred rooms. For a relaxed, genuinely Nordic dinner with a natural-wine list, book online or chance the bar on a weeknight.
Book online or walk in at the bar; a spread of small plates, the lamb tartare, and a glass off the natural-wine list.
7.Fiskfélagið
The cellar seafood room in old downtown, cold-water fish handled with care — book Fiskfélagið for New Nordic from the North Atlantic.
Fiskfélagið — The Fish Company — occupies a stone-walled cellar off Grófartorg in old downtown Reykjavik, and owner-chef Lárus Gunnar Jónasson leads a kitchen built almost entirely around what comes out of Icelandic water. Cod, salt cod, langoustine, blue mussels and the day's white fish arrive in a mix of traditional and modern preparations, and the seafood platter is the way to read the whole kitchen at once. The room is warm and a little romantic, candlelit under low arches, which makes it an easy choice for a date or a quieter dinner. Expect a tasting around ISK 18,000, with à la carte cheaper. For Icelandic seafood cooked with care in an atmospheric room, book online a few days out.
Book online; the seafood platter, the salt cod, and the langoustine.
How Reykjavik eats New Nordic
New Nordic here is shaped by the larder more than by any manifesto. Iceland grows little and imports a lot, so the cooking that feels truest is the cooking that leans on what the island actually has: lamb raised half-wild on moss and herbs, cold-water cod and langoustine, skyr and butter, dulse and other seaweeds, birch, angelica, crowberries and rhubarb, and the old preserving arts of curing, smoking, drying and fermenting fish. That is why a Reykjavik tasting menu tastes nothing like a Copenhagen one despite sharing a name — the raw material is wilder, the heritage recipes stranger, and the best kitchens play that up rather than down.
A few practical notes for 2026. Reykjavik is small and walkable, so most of these rooms are within fifteen minutes of each other on foot; Moss is the exception and needs a car and a plan. The starred rooms — Dill and ÓX — run one or two seatings a night and sell out days to weeks ahead, hard in the summer high season, so book the moment your dates are set. Service is included in Iceland and tipping is not expected. Prices are high across the board because almost everything bar the fish and lamb is imported, so the mid-tier rooms like Matur og Drykkur and Skál are where the value lives. For the wider city, use the full Reykjavik dining guide, and compare the genre across the region on our best New Nordic worldwide list.
Where not to look for it
Skip these for a serious New Nordic meal
The puffin-and-whale tourist rooms on Laugavegur, for the cooking. Several downtown spots build a menu around minke whale, puffin and "Viking" novelty aimed squarely at cruise traffic. They are about spectacle, not Icelandic produce cooked well — for the real thing at a fair price, book Matur og Drykkur or Skál instead.
Moss, if you only have a city evening. It is a genuine star and worth the trip, but it is a 45-minute drive each way to Grindavík, tied to the Blue Lagoon, and periodically affected by volcanic activity in the area. If your schedule is tight or you are without a car, stay in town with Dill or ÓX and save Moss for a day you can build around it.
Frequently asked
What is the best New Nordic restaurant in Reykjavik?
Dill is the best, Gunnar Karl Gíslason's room above the Mikkeller bar on Hverfisgata 12, the first restaurant in Iceland to win a Michelin star and a One Star room again in the 2026 guide. Its seven-to-ten-course tasting is built entirely from Icelandic produce, down to the famous rye-bread ice cream. For something more intimate, ÓX seats eleven guests at a single counter behind Sümac and also holds a star. Book Dill for the benchmark and ÓX for the closest, most personal version of the same idea.
What is New Nordic cuisine in Iceland?
New Nordic in Iceland means cooking the island's own larder rather than importing luxury: lamb that grazes wild on moss and herbs, langoustine and cod from cold North Atlantic water, skyr, dulse, birch, crowberries and rhubarb, plus the old preserving techniques of curing, smoking and fermenting. The movement's manifesto was signed in Copenhagen in 2004, but Reykjavik kitchens like Dill, ÓX and Matur og Drykkur read it through Icelandic ingredients and heritage recipes, which gives the food a flavour you cannot get anywhere else.
How much does a tasting menu cost in Reykjavik?
The starred rooms are the splurge: Dill runs roughly ISK 25,000 to 30,000 a head before wine, and ÓX about ISK 28,000 for sixteen courses. Moss at the Blue Lagoon sits higher once you add its wine-paired Kitchen Table, which is ISK 180,000. Mid-tier rooms are far gentler: Grillmarkaðurinn's tasting is around ISK 20,000, Matur og Drykkur closer to ISK 12,000 to 14,000, and at Skál you build a small-plates dinner from dishes around ISK 2,400 each. Iceland is expensive, and the bill reflects it; service is included.
Is Moss restaurant near Reykjavik open in 2026?
Yes. Moss, the restaurant at The Retreat at the Blue Lagoon, holds a Michelin star in the 2026 guide under chef Aggi Sverrisson, who ran the one-star Texture in London for a decade before returning to Iceland. It sits in Grindavík on the Reykjanes peninsula, about a 45-minute drive from central Reykjavik, so it is a planned outing rather than a city dinner. Volcanic activity has periodically affected the wider Blue Lagoon area, so confirm your booking and access directly with the restaurant before you drive out.
Do you need to book restaurants in Reykjavik in advance?
For the starred and tasting-menu rooms, yes. Dill and ÓX run one or two seatings a night in small rooms and sell out days to weeks ahead, especially in summer, so book online as soon as your dates are fixed. Moss needs planning around the drive and the Blue Lagoon. The à la carte rooms are easier: Grillmarkaðurinn, Fiskfélagið and Matur og Drykkur take normal online bookings a few days out, and Skál can usually fit walk-ins at the bar on a weeknight. See the full Reykjavik dining guide for the wider map.
More New Nordic, by city
More from RFK
Browse the full Reykjavik dining guide, compare the global field on the best New Nordic worldwide, read the verdict on one-star Dill and the counter at ÓX, plan a table to impress a client, or open the full RFK cuisine index.
Restaurants for Kings is reader-supported. Some reservation links are affiliate links with OpenTable, Resy or Tock; we earn a small commission at no cost to you, and a link never buys a place on a ranking. Editorial scores and ranking order are independent of any commercial relationship. See our ranking methodology.