Iceland 2013 - Day 2 4.5 Forks

Iceland 2013 - Day 2

Fish Company  Vesturgötu 2a, Grófartorg - 101 Reykjavík

The Fish Company was recommend to us by this couple we met at dinner the other night during the lobster dinner.  They swore that it was one of the best meals they had in their entire life, that's saying a lot since they also live in New York and have been exposed to great gourmet food.   I had also read about The Fish Company in the local Iceland paper as being one of the 3 best restaurants in the city, so I figured it was worth a try.

First off, it's a bit difficult to find.  It's located in the basement/bottom level of a building on a quiet side street and there's not much signage on the outside, so it did take me a while to find it.  But I was so happy we finally found did because it was totally worth the walk about.  The menu here is "global" in that they describe each dish as coming from a specific country but I think it's more of an "influence" than actual recipes from that country.  For starters, we had originally wanted to get the sushi (from Japan) since the couple at the lobster dinner had raved about it.  Unfortunately, the sushi rice wasn't ready yet, so we opted for the Tahti starter of grilled and marinated tuna with pineapple salad, parsnip purée, butter milk foam, crispy sichuan pepper biscuet and soya glaze (3300 ISK but the restaurant kindly charged us for the sushi dish which was 2800 ISK = $22 USD).  For entrees, I ordered the Iceland dish of perch, artic char and another white fish with kale and mashed potatoes (4900 ISK = $38 USD) and Allison got the Sweden dish of fried salmon and grav lax and dil foam, goat cheese cream, pickled cucumber, celery jam and marinated potatoes (4400 ISK = $34 USD).

Before we got our dishes, we were served this amazing warm bread (that was sour and slightly undercooked) with a trio of fantastic dipping sauces.  One was a sweet butter, another a sweet chili sauce and the 3rd a Icelandic yogurt like sauce.  They were all delicious and I wished every place started a meal like this.   I would have actually paid for the sauces if they didn't give it to us for free.

On to the appetizer.  The tuna was served rare in cube formation and sashimi style.  While the buttermilk foam sounds like some kind of pretentious WD-50 style addition, but it was a nice light touch to the dish.  I also wouldn't have thought that tuna and pineapple would go together, but it surprisingly worked.  Each mouthful was sweet from the pineapple but still had this clean seafood taste to it.  The quality of the fish was super fresh and right up there with the Japanese sushi grade fish you'd get at a high end sushi joint.

Moving on to my entree.  I love fish in all forms, so I was extremely excited to have not one but three different kinds of local fish on one dish.  The 3 types of fish were all covered in a slightly thick sauce that wasn't too far off from something that reminded me of a hollandaise-like sauce.  Ok, I know that probably sounds kind of gross but it wasn't.  The fish, especially the Arctic Char, was cooked to perfection...medium rare to the point it was almost raw.  Each piece was also a very generous cut of fish, so even though the dish was almost $40, I could see many restaurants elsewhere charging about $20+ for each piece of fish on the dish individually.  They were each moist and tender and really re-affirmed my love for fish.  The kale (how the heck did they manage to find kale in Iceland?) was sauteed and tasted great and of course you can't go wrong with a mashed potato base when it's made with lots of butter. 

I also tried Allison's salmon dish and also thoroughly enjoyed the pieces of salmon as well but can't give much of a detailed description of it since I just had 1 bite.  The picture doesn't really do it justice at all (in fact now that I'm looking at the pix - it kind of looks like a hot mess), but trust me, it was good.

I really did want to try their dessert but after spending almost the entire night eating 4 different kinds of fishes with endless amounts of sauces on them, I just really couldn't fit anymore food in my stomach. 

I do want to mention that the staff there was impeccable.  I felt like I was in a high end NYC style restaurant based on all the attention we received from the staff.  They were all very knowledgeable and seemed to take food seriously but not in a stuffy manner.  The overall decor was dark but still casual and comfortable.    While there wasn't much of a crowd when we got there for dinner (we ate at 6pm because we had a 8pm Northern Lights Tour to catch), I could see this place being filled up by locals as well as a food loving tourists  too.  All in all,  I was really blown away by the food and service of this place.  It really changed my mind as to what restaurants in Iceland are like.  I could see this type of restaurant in New York or London but I would haven never guessed Iceland.  But now I'm a believer and have to say that some of my most memorable meals of have come from Iceland.   Total bill: $104 for 2 people.