Top Four Coffee Shops in Reykjavik

Reykjavik may be tiny, but it knows a thing or two about coffee.  A follow-up to my London coffee guide, here are my top four favourite coffee shops in Iceland.

1) Reykjavik Roasters 

A sign of all good coffee shops is the little spoon that comes with your latte.

I affectionately refer to Reykjavik Roasters as the "English-speaking expat" coffee shop. Most of the workers are either British (see here) , American, Australian (mark of a good coffee shop!), or Canadian.  Perhaps for this reason, it seems to attract a large number of expats or tourists from those countries. For those of us who avoid dairy milk after an unfortunate incident with Baby Brown Swiss Dairy Cows (or who are, you know, just allergic to dairy or vegan), they offer soya milk or oat milk.

If you're an American and want to act very American as soon as the weather peaks at 50 degrees Fahrenheit (that's 10 degrees Celsius for those of you who hail from any other country on the planet), you can order an iced latte.  Though, I offer a word of caution: what you think are chocolate shavings next to the sugar is actually cinnamon.  Not that I know from personally dumping a bunch in my latte and then choking on too much cinnamon, I'm just hypothetically speaking here.  However, an American couple came in just after the unfortunate cinnamon incident and asked if they could pay with US coins. Sorry fellow Americans.  We were struggling to look intelligent that day! 

2) C is for Cookie 

Another mark of a good coffee shop is some lovely latte art.

 C is for Cookie often makes lists of Reykjavik's top vegetarian/vegan dining establishments (I'm currently working on my own list) and with various vegan options, including carrot cake, it is easy to see why.  They also have free Wi Fi, which is always nice! Oh, and yes, that is electrical tape on my poor laptop.  It has been through a lot. 

3) Passion 

Yes, that newspaper is in Icelandic. No, I didn't actually read it, I just pretended to.

This is the only one featured that is not downtown.  This means that the crowds are nearly all locals and everything is in Icelandic.  Everyone working seems to speak fluent English though.  They have both soya and coconut milk and a variety of vegan options, including vegan chocolate croissants, pictured above.  A couple of visiting Americans showed me this shop and I've been back at least once of a week ever since then!

4) Kaffibrennslan 

Again, note the fantastic and elaborate latte art. That is the mark of a good coffee shop.

Located right on Laugavegur, KaffiBrennslan has longer opening hours than the other coffee shops listed.  It is popular with tourists, but has an upstairs area that is quiet enough for knitting or blogging.  In additional to coffee, they have a soya chai.  

Am I missing your favourite Reykjavik coffee shop?  Comment below to let me know what it is!