Cafe Gardurinn
Reykjavík's friendliest vegan café: one daily savoury dish and a soup, plus a famous vegan carrot cake.
Cafe Gardurinn keeps things refreshingly simple. Reykjavík’s friendliest vegan café serves just one savoury dish each day, paired with a complementing soup, and that is the whole offering. No overwhelming menu, no agonising over options; every day is different, and, reassuringly, it is always a good choice.
The atmosphere lands somewhere unexpected: the easy familiarity of a small-town local, married to dishes that would not look out of place in a far smarter restaurant. It is a quaint, welcoming room that quietly outperforms its modesty.
The real fame, though, lies with the sweet things, and the emphasis belongs squarely on the sweet. Cafe Gardurinn is renowned for its baking, and the vegan carrot cake is essentially compulsory. A creamy slice of vegan cheesecake makes an excellent companion, or one for the road.
What gives the café its charm is its lack of fuss. By cooking one thing well rather than twenty things adequately, it sidesteps the anxiety of choice altogether and lets a traveller simply turn up and trust the kitchen.
For a traveller in Reykjavík who wants a warm, unpretentious vegan lunch, and a genuinely memorable slice of cake, Cafe Gardurinn is a warm recommendation. Take whatever the day’s dish happens to be, and do not, under any circumstances, skip the carrot cake.
