Top Cocktail Bars in Reykjavik for a Properly Made Drink

Where the Ice Goes Down Smooth: Hunting Down the Top Cocktail Bars in Reykjavik

I have watched Reykjavik's drinking scene change more in the last ten years than in the previous fifty. When I was a student at Menntaskólinn, the only thing anyone mixed behind a bar was a Bjór og brennivín, and even then the ratio was a little aggressive. These days, this small capital of 130,000 people has more serious bars per capita than most cities twice its size, and the people working behind them have trained in London, New York, and Copenhagen before coming back to pour drinks on Laugavegur. If you are after the top cocktail bars in Reykjavik, you will find them clustered in a tight triangle between Ingólfstorg square, the harbor, and the back end of Hverfisgata, each one with its own stubborn philosophy about ice, bitters, and what a Negroni should actually taste like. This is the route I walk when friends fly in and want the real version of the city, not the tour-bus version.

Hlemmur Mathöll and the Quiet Reinvention of Skuggahverfi

The food hall at Hlemmur sits inside the old bus terminal, a flat-roofed 1930s building that the city spent decades pretending was an eyesore. Now it is the anchor of an entire neighborhood, Skuggahverfi, which most locals still call "the area behind Skuggahverfisstræti," because that is how we name things here, by the street you have to walk down to get there. Inside the hall, bar manager Eyrún Helga Einarsdóttir runs a tiny eight-seat cocktail counter tucked between a fish-and-chips window and a Sri Lankan curry place, and it is the only spot I know where you can order a properly stirred Martini made with Icelandic dill-infused aquavit while someone two meters away is arguing about rugby in Icelandic.

The drinks here rotate every three months. The last list I worked through started with a clarified milk punch built around local thyme and crowberry syrup, moved through a smoky barley Old Fashioned that uses malt from the Borg brewery out in Skagafjörður, and ended with a sour involving birch sap and egg white, whipped so aggressively the foam stood up like meringue. Come on a Friday between 17:00 and 19:00, when the after-work crowd from the design studios on Laugavegur spills in but has not yet been replaced by the late diners, and you will actually get to talk to Eyrún. One thing tourists rarely catch: she keeps a list of every regular's name written in pencil on the back of a cardboard coaster, and if you come back three times in a week she will remember yours too.

Skuggabar: The Local Living Room on Skuggagata

Walk past the Bónus supermarket on Skuggagata with the pink piggy logo, past the bakery that opens at six and smells of cinnamon until noon, and you will reach a black-painted door with no sign. That is Skuggabar, and the lack of signage is half the point. Owner Sindri Páll Ólafsson opened it in 2019 after a decade working at Slippbarinn, and he told me once over a fermented gooseberry highball that he wanted a place where bartenders from other Reykjavik bars could come after their shifts and actually drink something they did not have to perform around.

The cocktail menu is fifteen drinks, all short, and most of them feature Icelandic herbs pulled from a small greenhouse behind the kitchen. The one I keep ordering is called Skuggi, named after the street, and it is a riff on a Last Word that swaps green chartreuse for a house-made angelica liqueur and adds a single drop of sea buckthorn oil. Service is unhurried, which is a polite way of saying that if you show up at 22:30 on a Saturday you might wait fifteen minutes for a drink. Locals tend to arrive between 21:00 and 22:00, order two rounds, and leave before the dance music starts. The bar connects to the broader Reykjavik story because Skuggagata itself was once a working-class street of fishermen and seamstresses, and Sindri pays rent to the same family that owned the building in 1947, when it was a sewing workshop.

Slippbarinn: Where Reykjavik Mixology Actually Started

Anyone who tells you about craft cocktail bars in Reykjavik and does not mention Slippbarinn is either too young or being lazy. This is the bar that put the city on the international map in 2012, and I have watched its star rise, dip, and recover over the years. It sits inside the Icelandair Hotel Reykjavik Marina on the harbor edge of Skuggahverfi, the same neighborhood as Hlemmur, in a converted shipyard building that still has the original iron rails running through the floorboards. Head bartender Martin Kolbech trained at the Cocktail Club in Copenhagen before moving north, and he runs the program with a kind of quiet authority that does not need a fancy title on a business card.

Order the Smoked Reykja, a take on an Old Fashioned that is finished under a glass cloche filled with burning Icelandic juniper brush, and the entire table goes silent while you lift the lid. It costs around 3,800 ISK, which sounds like a lot until you realize the drink takes seven minutes to make and involves a small piece of equipment that looks like it was borrowed from a chemistry lab. The wine and cocktail list won World's Best Cocktail Menu at the Spirited Awards in 2014, and the bar has been a stop on basically every serious bartender's Reykjavik tour since. Show up on a Tuesday or Wednesday, when the conference crowds are thin and you can actually grab one of the leather banquettes by the window. The harbor view at 23:00, with the Harpa concert hall glowing yellow across the water, is one of the most quietly dramatic things in the city.

The only real complaint is that the lighting after 22:00 gets aggressively moody, in that way that makes everyone over thirty pretend they came here to read their phone.

Apothecary Bar: The Secret Basement Behind Vegamótastígur

If you have walked up Laugavegur toward Hallgrímskirkja and noticed a tiny shop selling herbal teas and tinctures, you have walked past the entrance to one of the best cocktail bars Reykjavik has ever produced. There is no visible sign, only a door that opens at 21:00 sharp, and a staircase that goes down. Apothecary sits in what used to be an actual pharmacy, the kind with rows of brown glass bottles and handwritten labels, and the team behind it has leaned hard into the history. Every cocktail on the menu reads like a prescription, with dosage instructions printed on the back of the card.

The flagship drink is called the Cured, and it involves a house-made bitters blend that includes Icelandic angostura bark, lovage root, and something the bartenders refuse to name, though I have my suspicions it involves lichen. The bartenders here dress like they are about to perform minor surgery, in white shirts and black waistcoats, and the whole aesthetic is part-Jungian apothecary, part-Scandinavian minimalism. They make their own tonic water in five-gallon batches on Sundays, which is when I tend to swing by around 18:00 to watch them stir, strain, and bottle while the city outside is still finishing dinner.

The narrow staircase gets a little awkward when two people try to pass each other going in opposite directions, which is a regular problem on weekend nights. Plan accordingly.

Reykjavik's Mixology Bars Along Laugavegur: The Strip and Its Surprises

Laugavegur is the spine of the city, a 1.2-kilometer shopping street that runs from the harbour up to the Hallgrímskirkja church, and it contains more cocktail bars per meter than any other street in Iceland. Walking the length of it in a single evening is a research project I recommend every serious drinker attempt at least once. A few stops you should not skip.

Loft Hostel Bar: Cheap, Loud, and Better Than It Should Be

On the ground floor of the Loft Hostel, halfway up Laugavegur on the left-hand side, there is a bar that looks like it was built for backpackers and accidentally became good. The bartenders take turns making a single "Bartender's Choice" cocktail each night, and because the bar has high turnover, they go through dozens of ingredients weekly. I have had drinks here that I genuinely could not find at any of the more famous spots. The catch: it closes at 23:00 most nights, and on weekends the line to get in runs down the block.

KEX Hostel Bar: The Skuggahverfi Hangover That Refuses to Leave

KEX sits a little further west, almost on Skuggagata, in a former biscuit factory that still has the original concrete floors and the smell of old machinery under the new paint. The bar is large, with mismatched leather sofas and a long zinc counter, and the cocktail program has gotten surprisingly serious since head bartender Bjarni Ragnar took over in 2021. Order the KEX Negroni, which uses a coffee-infused Campari and a smoked Icelandic gin, and try to time your visit for one of the monthly bartender pop-ups they host in the upstairs function room. Parking is, frankly, a joke anywhere near here, so take the bus or walk.

Gaukurinn: Punk, Drag, and the Best Old Fashioned on Tryggvagata

Not every cocktail bar in Reykjavik needs to be minimalist and serious, and Gaukurinn on Tryggvagata has been proving that since 1994. The walls are covered in gig posters from bands that played here in the late nineties, the karaoke nights on Thursdays are legendarily unhinged, and somewhere in the middle of all this chaos there is a bartender named Sigga who makes one of the best Old Fashioneds I have had outside of Manhattan. She muddles the sugar in smoked Icelandic butter before adding the bourbon, and the result tastes like the drink grew up in a fishing village. Show up before 22:00 if you want a seat, and do not, under any circumstances, skip the karaoke.

The Old Harbour and the New Wave of Reykjavik Bars

The harbor area west of Harpa has quietly turned into a serious drinking neighborhood in the last five years. It used to be all whale-watching ticket offices and fish restaurants, but the rents dropped during the post-pandemic slump and a handful of ambitious operators moved in.

Skurinn: The Floating Concept That Works

Skurinn operates out of a permanently moored fishing boat at the Reykjavik harbour, just west of the Sun Voyager sculpture, and serves six cocktails, all built around Icelandic seaweed, salt cod, or fermented blue mussel. It sounds like a gimmick until you try the cocktail made with pickled seaweed brine and aquavit, and then you order a second one. It is open from May to September only, weather permitting, and closes the moment the wind hits 18 meters per second. Bring a jacket even in July.

MOSS: Hotel Borg's Quiet Answer to Everything

Across the street from Harpa, inside the Hotel Borg on Pósthússtræti, MOSS has been slowly building a reputation as one of the most serious Reykjavik mixology bars in the city. The cocktails are built around local botanicals and the bar has a soft spot for sherry-based drinks, which is unusual in a city that tends to over-index on aquavit. The space itself feels like a 1930s drawing room that has been gently nudged into the present, with leather walls, low lighting, and a turntable that usually plays something between Chet Baker and Nils Frahm. It is expensive, around 4,200 ISK for a cocktail, but it is the place to take someone who only has one night in the city. The bar seats eight and reservations are wise.

When to Go and What to Know About Drinking in Reykjavik

Most Reykjavik cocktail bars open between 17:00 and 18:00, peak between 22:00 and midnight, and close somewhere between 01:00 and 03:00 depending on the day of the week. Thursday through Saturday are the busiest nights, and several places along Laugavegur enforce a door policy after 23:00 that can be unpredictable. If you want a quieter experience, aim for Wednesday or Sunday, when many bars run reduced menus but you can actually talk to the person making your drink.

Tap water in Reykjavik is among the cleanest in the world, pulled from springs in Hafnarfjörður and the Bláfjöll mountains, so feel free to ask for a water glass. Tips are not expected but are appreciated, with 10 percent being the local norm for excellent service. Public drinking is technically restricted to designated areas during certain summer weekends, particularly during Menningarnótt in August, when the entire downtown becomes a street party that runs until sunrise. Buses run all night on Friday and Saturday, and the Strætó routes 1, 3, 6, 11, and 12 cover most of 101 Reykjavík.

Finally, remember that Reykjavik operates on the assumption that you came here to see the northern lights and the waterfalls first, and that drinking is the well-deserved reward at the end. Bartenders here will sometimes ask where you have been during the day before they recommend a drink, which is not small talk, it is part of how the menu is built. Answer honestly and you will end up with something you did not know you wanted.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the one must-try local specialty food or drink that Reykjavik is famous for?

The defining local cocktail ingredient is Icelandic brennivín, a clear caraway-flavored schnapps distilled since 1914 at Einstök distillery in Akureyri, and most Reykjavik bars feature it in at least one cocktail, typically mixed with birch sap, crowberry syrup, or local vermouth. Prices for a brennivín-based cocktail range from 2,200 to 4,200 ISK depending on the venue, and tastings of brennivín on its own start around 1,200 ISK. If you want to taste it straight, look for a bar that serves it chilled, the traditional method that locals call "svartur dauði" (black death), though it clocks in at only 37.5 percent alcohol by volume.

Is Reykjavik expensive to visit? Give a realistic daily budget breakdown for mid-tier travelers.

A realistic daily budget for mid-tier travel in Reykjavik runs between 35,000 and 55,000 ISK per person, which covers a mid-range hotel room (15,000 to 25,000 ISK), two meals at casual restaurants (5,000 to 8,000 ISK total), three cocktails at quality bars (9,000 to 12,000 ISK total), public transport (around 600 ISK per ride or 1,500 ISK for a day pass), and museum entries averaging 2,500 ISK. Coffee and pastries at places around Laugavegur cost 800 to 1,400 ISK, and a sit-down dinner at a restaurant like Grillið or Matur og Drykkur will push the day to 70,000 ISK or higher. Tipping is not required by law, but adding 10 percent for excellent service is appreciated.

Is the tap water in Reykjavik safe to drink, or should travelers strictly rely on filtered water options?

Reykjavik tap water comes directly from the Bláfjöll mountain springs via a 90-kilometer pipeline and is tested daily by the Reykjavik Water Utility, Veitur, with results that consistently place it among the purest municipal water in Europe, usually measuring under 10 parts per million of total dissolved solids. Every cocktail bar in the city serves it for free on request, and many restaurants will proudly point out that they use the same water in their coffee and ice. Bottled water is available in stores but is rarely purchased by locals, and restaurants that serve filtered or imported water are doing so for branding rather than safety reasons.

Are there any specific dress codes or cultural etiquettes to keep in mind when visiting local spots in Reykjavik?

Reykjavik bars are among the most casually dressed in Europe, and you will see locals in hiking boots and waterproof jackets standing next to visitors in evening wear, with nobody looking twice at either. The only dress code that genuinely exists is at upscale venues like MOSS inside Hotel Borg, where the management prefers closed-toe shoes and discourages sportswear after 21:00. The most important cultural etiquette is to remove your shoes when entering someone's home, and to bring a small gift if invited for dinner, though this rule applies more to private homes than to bars. Locals also tend to keep their voices low in cocktail bars, and a sudden burst of loud American-style enthusiasm is sometimes received with polite reserve.

How easy is it to find pure vegetarian, vegan, or plant-based dining options in Reykjavik?

Plant-based dining has expanded significantly in Reykjavik since 2020, and most cocktail bars now offer at least one fully vegan cocktail menu item, often built around aquavit, Icelandic herbs, and oat or aquafaba foams rather than egg white. Dedicated vegan restaurants like Gló, Happ, and the newer Vega Lífsstíll on Hverfisgata serve lunch menus between 1,800 and 2,800 ISK, and even traditional restaurants in 101 Reykjavík now label vegan options clearly on the menu. Non-alcoholic cocktail programs have also grown, with bars like Slippbarinn and Skuggabar offering zero-proof menus featuring seedlip, juniper tonic, and house-made fermented rhubarb sodas, usually priced between 1,800 and 2,500 ISK.