When I said I was going to Iceland, a lot of people got wide eyed when they remembered my veganism. What are you going to eat?! Ice?
I guess it has a reputation for having a diet heavy with fish and meat, and that may be so. However, was pleasantly extremely surprised how easy it was to be vegan in Iceland. Particularly in the capital of Reykjavik, it is a well-established concept. Beyond that, though, I was still really taken aback that a lot of the service stations and supermarkets as we got further out into the sticks not only had vegan options, but they were clearly labelled to avoid doubt. Winning!
Now, two things to say about eating on an Iceland holiday. First of all, you’re probably going to spend most of the time on the road, which means cooking for yourself on a campstove. This makes things easier in that you can cook your own recipes from scratch with naturally vegan ingredients (beans, rice, pasta, veggies), and apart from this, the main supermarket that you will see everywhere (Bonus) does your whole line of vegan substitutes- milks, yoghurts, burgers, mince etc. One morning feeling particularly extravagant I even made some vegan blueberry pancakes (pictured). However, this leads to point two- everything is VERY expensive. A shop for one week of main meals cost a fearful amount, and we had to keep topping up on fresh veggies as we went.
Because of this, a lot of people in the know had brought their own veggies and pasta etc. with them. As I’d flown on the most budget flight possible, I didn’t really have enough luggage to do this. It wasn’t quite as bad as I was expecting given the rep Iceland has for being expensive in general, but with the cost of also renting your cooking equipment if you don’t have it, don’t go thinking that because it’s a camping trip it’s going to be a budget holiday.
However- I was really pleased to find that if you needed it, the options were generally available. One particularly good campsite (at Skaftafell National Park) had several vegan dinner options in the café as well as two kinds of cake. The exception to this is in some of the further out places, where it’s worth ensuring you are stocked up with hummus, bread, and other picnic items before venturing, because even if there were vegan options available in the one café in some of the far-off stretches of road (and there generally weren’t), it will cost you about £17 for a soup. Also, it’s just too damn pretty to sit inside.
In Reykjavik, however, (probably at the start and end of your trip) you’ll be made up. Eat Co has two locations and is the perfect lunch stop for huge, healthy salad bowls, smoothies, almond lattes, and all other kinds of good-for-you hipster grub. After eating limited fresh veggies during the week due to the cost, it was great to stuff our faces with these once we got back to civilisation.
The best spot for a dinner out is undoubtedly Kaffi Vinyl. Taking hipster chic to the next level, this place is a chilled-vibe, low-key vegan restaurant, jazz café and record shop all in one. The prices are higher than at home but not bad for Iceland, and for it we got a huge bowl of delicious noodles and an Oumph! Teriyaki bowl, with a fairly priced house wine. If that doesn’t already warm your snowflake heart, they also sell a range of feminist and gender queer stickers. Yay!
So go forth to Iceland vegan friends, without fear of only eating moss. Unless you want to try the traditional moss schnapps, but from experience I would say probably DON’T 😉
Vegan Wander Woman 