Tapas Barinn – Reykjavik, Iceland

Our first restaurant we tried upon arriving to Iceland was Tapas Barinn, we looked up the menu online and it looked like it would be Paleo friendly. It is located right in the heart of Reykjavik and is very convenient to walk to. What intrigued me about Tapas Barinn was that they offered an “Icelandic Feast” on their menu. Basically, tapas sized portions of all of Iceland’s favorite dishes.

First was the shot of Brennivin (okay so not completely Paleo but at least it’s gluten free!)

Next, the smoked puffin with blueberry “Brennivin” sauce – okay so I felt really bad about eating the cute little Puffin but when else am I ever going to eat Puffin?

One of my favorites, the Icelandic Arctic Charr with peppers-salsa – it tasted a lot like salmon to me, very flavorful!

Then, Lobster tails in garlic sauce – very similar to what you would get here in the United States –

Pan-fried line caught blue ling with lobster sauce –

Next, Icelandic lamb with beer-butterscotch sauce – let it be known I am not a huge fan of lamb but Icelandic lamb I could get used to! There was no “game-y” taste like you find so often with lamb in the U.S.

Lastly, Minke Whale with cranberry sauce – this was probably the most unique thing on the menu. I was picturing that whale would be like fish but it’s really more like steak! It’s served medium rare and if you didn’t tell me it was whale, I probably would have thought it was a nice filet mignon!

For dessert, white chocolate “Skyr” mousse with passion coulis – I tried to go easy on this as I can’t tolerate large amounts of dairy but it sure was good!!

Overall, I would say this meal was fairly compliment on the Paleo scale of things (aside from the Brennivin and dessert). I would highly recommend this restaurant if you want to try small portions of all of Iceland’s favorite dishes at a pretty fair price (by Icelandic standards!)