How you will want to go about eating vegan in Reykjavik will depend largely on your budget. If you are budget travelers like us your best option is probably to stay somewhere, with minimally access to a refrigerator and preferably a stove or more. A microwave can't hurt either, although far less useful than a stove unless you have special cooking equipment. We stayed at Stay Boholt which was an okay, but not great or amazing budget hotel with a minifridge, microwave, and stove (with cooking equipment and dishes).
Iceland allows most vegan foods to be brought in, so long as the amount of food is consistent with the length of your stay. Bringing in staples, especially vegan proteins is a great idea. We brought in a lot of lentils which worked out great! Officially the limit is about 6.6 lbs of food, but I have doubts anyone is actually weighing it.
There are many grocery stores in Reykjavik including downtown, all which you can easily access on foot. Bonus is the cheapest and where most of the locals shop. They have a lot of produce, canned goods that one would call naturally vegan vs intentionally, hummus (labeled vegan) and soy yogurt (labeled vegan). At another grocery store I found the vegan slices below. There is a "health" food store, but like many "health" food stores I found it a disappointment as many of the items featured animal products and it was expensive.
If you are looking at a nice sized budget or are stuck without even a refrigerator there are a few options for eating out. I would still recommend having some food with you for hours when you might not be able to access vegan food. Keep in mind restaurant food in downtown Reykjavik will leave you with sticker shock. Smoothies run close to $10, soup is about $15, coffee about $6, actual meals $25-$30 and snacks around $8-$10. Keep in mind this is fast casual to casual light. I don't even know what fine dining would cost. Then again I heard from someone staying outside of Reykjavik food was even more expensive there.
I could only find one fully vegan restaurant in Iceland. This would be Vinyl. Even if you are on a budget it is probably worth at least stopping by there for a snack once, although perhaps more for the ambiance or coffee, than for the food which was okay, but not amazing. As the name would imply, they also sell records and have some neat record related decor. If you plan to mainly eat out you will probably find yourself there often! Below is the parfait at Vinyl.
Vinyl is in central Rekyjavik one street away from the major downtown street in the downtown area(in the direction of the water). You kind of have to know it is there to find it, but if you know it is there it's really easy to get to.
I only ate out one other time during, our stay in Iceland. It was an awful experience and I think I may have been vegan scammed a place called Nat Kitchen, especially after retroactively reading other reviews on happy cow. They had the words vegan and vegetarian plastered in huge letters on the front. Having not had a lot of time to research this trip in advance and having heard there was a vegetarian/vegan place downtown I assumed this was the place. Bad assumption.
On entering and perhaps being jet lagged I assumed given the first word on the door was vegan and the second vegetarian the meat and fish all over was fake meat and fish. Given that fake meat isn't always vegan I asked what is vegan. I got a very weird answer and was recommended several things including fish. Eventually after several more rounds of questions I figured out the fish was likely actually fish, but thought the soup was vegan. But after reading the reviews on happy cow and given the soup tasted like it had dairy in it I doubt the soup was vegan. So my advice: avoid Nat Kitchen.
Speaking of the place that is vegetarian/vegan that would be Glo, which I didn't make it to, as like most restaurants in Iceland it is a bit pricey and I get more excited about purely vegan restaurants. If someone has been there it would be great to hear what you think in the comments!
Not sure how eating at "regular" restaurants would go, as I didn't try this, due to the kitchen and the budget.
Looking for my other quick vegan guides. See below:
Budapest
BWI E terminal
Dublin
International Air Travel
Kansas City
Little Rock Airport
London (UK)
Mall of America
Oslo
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