Iceland Day 7 – Westfjords, Ísafjörður Day 2

Monday September 1, Exploring Ísafjörður

I woke on the last day of our first week in Iceland at 0530 hearing steady rain, no surprise on account of the socked-in conditions yesterday afternoon and the consistent rain falling through the dinner hour. After dozing off again, I woke for good at 0745 to gray, damp conditions with only light rain. Despite the drizzly weather, kids shrieked incessantly on the nearby schoolyard.

Today, we thought to make the quick 25-minute drive to the town of Flateyri ("flat sandspit") that we passed on yesterday afternoon for photos of the bucolic village bunched along a spit of land. Scrapping that idea on account of the blah gray yucky day, we decided to wander Ísafjörður, wash a week’s worth of dirty clothes as well as last night's dinner dishes, and most importantly, find the coffee that we have been missing for days.

Ísafjörður is blessed with two coffeeshops; today we selected Kaffihús Bakarans for coffee and pastries. This place turns out to be a bakery with an automated coffee machine that spits out generic coffee. Despite the so-so coffee, we took advantage of the freshly baked breads to purchase a delicious looking five-grain loaf, fimmkornabrauð, and have it sliced for our lunch sandwiches. It proved to taste as delicious as it looked.

Pastries at Kaffihús Bakarans

Savory Sesame Seed Ham Roll and Cheese Croissant

After breakfast, we wandered a serendipitously random path back to the apartment, a quick stroll in the tiny town built in the middle of a fjord. Ísafjörður, "ice fjord," is an ancient town built on a sandspit in the Skutulsfjörður, an offshoot of the larger Ísafjarðardjúp fjord, djúp meaning deep. The town of about 2,600 is the largest settlement in the Vestfirðir (Westfjords) and has expanded to both sides of the fjord from the original settlement and current downtown on the spit.

Coming back from coffee, enough things caught my interest that I fetched my camera from the apartment and walked through the small town shooting random photos. Similar to my walk in Reykjavík, I noted the abundance of lovage (Levisticum officinale) both growing wild and in gardens. I note this especially because it is one of my favorite herbs and I miss access to it.

European Searocket, Cakile maritima
Growing on Northern Beaches All Over Northern Hemisphere

Honesty or Money Plant, Lunaria annua

Bright Golden Tansy, Tanacetum vulgare, and Lysimachia sp.

Rainbows Are a Big Deal in Iceland

More Lysimachia

Non-native Japanese Mountain-ash, Sorbus commixta,
as a Landscape Shrub

Fall Color Starting on European Mountain-ash,
Reyniviður, Sorbus aucuparia

Football Anyone?

Near our Apartment, Surprised to See Le Blanc et Noir of Bretagne

Something About the Juxtaposition Appeals to Me
Organic Weeds, Industrial Steel

Friend Across the Street from Us

After a brief misty respite in which I was able to shoot photos without getting too wet, the rain set in more earnestly while we ate our lunch, pasta left over from dinner. The rain did not let up and by dinner time, the wind gusts had picked up just in time for our short walk to the so-called best fish restaurant in Iceland.

Tjöruhúsið in the Red Building

Tjöruhúsið is a restaurant that I heard about time and again as a place to visit, so I booked a table back in July via an email conversation. This family-run restaurant uses no booking software and does not advertise the times for their two seatings. I love their web page, which reads in its entirety:

This is a website for the restaurant Tjöruhúsið in Ísafjörður, Iceland.

We are not very interested in marketing, or the internet in general.

Rather, we take pleasure and pride in making and serving great food, and creating good vibes for our guests.

Maybe we’ll make a more elaborate and informative website at some point (I wouldn’t hold my breath).

In the meanwhile, if you want to reserve spots, you can email us at tjoruhusid@gmail.com or call us at (+354) 456-4419 or maybe message us on our Facebook page.

We love you!

Your Friends At Tjöruhúsið

Actually, before I booked seats, I ran it by Ann. Tjöruhúsið serves a nightly buffet of fish brought to them that day with no published menu. But in America, buffet is synonymous with terrible quality, so I asked Ann to check out the reviews and see if she wanted to gamble. She did. We did not regret it.

The restaurant occupies an old wooden building in the oldest cluster of houses in Ísafjörður. Tjöruhúsið (“Tar House”) was built in 1781 as a warehouse, perhaps by Danish carpenters. In a land of no trees and few wooden buildings, this building is notable. It is also hobbit low with cross beams that were only about as high as my chin. I had to duck constantly and only hit my head once, something of a miracle.

Part of the charm of this restaurant for us was that it has communal seating at several long tables. We were looking forward to mingling with our tablemates. Many Americans have an aversion to communal seating; we enjoy the chance to meet other people over a meal. Sadly, the restaurant was only a third full during our seating and all diners were spread out. The couple nearest us, Germans I think, were real duds who were absolutely unwilling to converse in any language. Tourism apparently dies off after August 15 (exactly why we visited when we did) explaining the lack of diners. Our host also mentioned that they had already let their seasonal employees go. Family friends picked up the slack.

Once most everyone was seated, our host gave a spiel, first in Icelandic and then in English, apologizing for the "shit weather" and explaining the buffet. Dinner started with a bowl of fiskisúpa, a coconut milk fish soup, that they ladled into the bowls that we carried from the table. While we were eating soup, they set out a buffet of sides and then a buffet of fish dishes, each in huge skillets.

Once dinner started, they started spinning vinyl on a turntable that I saw as I approached the buffet. The side dishes that I recall were green salad, mashed potatoes, rice, mushroom barlotto, shaved Brussels sprouts with truffle oil, seared cauliflower, carrot salad, and a pickle or two. The fish buffet included Arctic char, some kind of shark that was like mako/swordfish, two bacalao dishes, one fresh cod, wolffish, plaice, and cod tongues. As a chef, I am well familiar with Gellur/cod tongues, a piece of meat from the throat area of the cod that is beyond divine. Very few people tried them. Ann and I almost made ourselves sick eating them.

Table Setting at Tjöruhúsið

My Nemesis: Chin-High Crossbeam

Bowl of Fiskisúpa

Love the Ice Bucket!

Arctic Char

Salt Cod with Olives

Plaice (a Flatfish) was a Standout

Back Pan They Were Calling Shark
Front Pan: Gellur/Cod Tongues

Wolffish in a Cream Sauce with Pine Nuts and Raisins

Dinner cost 35.000ISK (about $285) with a bottle of wine. We really enjoyed it and talking with the restaurant crew (in the absence of tablemates). I finished my meal with a decent cup of coffee before heading back out into the chilly and damp evening. We walked about the old section of town near the restaurant before walking back up the street to our apartment. The following photos are from the complex of buildings in the old harbor that includes the restaurant, the Westfjords History Museum, the Maritime Museum, and the Visitors Center.

We went to bed overly sated on piles of cod tongues and wishing that we had a few more days to spend in the glorious Westfjords. Tomorrow would see us headed back to the mainland and touch briefly on the ring road before veering north off of it to explore Northern Iceland.