Gluten Free Iceland

A few weeks ago, I took my first big time gluten free trip. Prior to being diagnosed with Celiac Disease I subscribed to the "try everything" approach when it came eating in foreign countries... especially when it came to the candy aisle at the local grocery store. This trip was completely different.

Skógarfoss

I started the trip with my favorite gluten free traveling companions, a bag of each of my favorite gluten free breads, (Canyon Bakehouse San Juan Seven Grain & Udi's Whole Grain), and a baggie of Larabars. They completed saved me from angrily starving to death during our car trips.

We spent three days in Reykjavik, two days on organized bus tours and two days on the road with a rental car. Restaurants in Iceland that I could eat at, (read: not the hot dog shanty), were insanely expensive so we hit the local grocery store and made our own breakfasts, lunches and three of the dinners. This saved us a considerable amount of money and me a lot of headaches. We found several health food stores around Laugavegur, (the main shopping drag) and several restaurants on-line that people had been to. I also looked up the main words for Wheat, Barley, Rye and Oats in the English - Icelandic Dictionary and actually read labels. Once you know what you're looking for, it's not too bad. I didn't take into account other hidden gluten ingredients, but wound up fine. I played a little bit of gluten roulette and was lucky. The main words you are looking for are:

Wheat: Hveiti
Barley: Bygg, bankabygg
Rye: rúgur
Oats: Hafrar
Malt: Malt
Caramel: Karamella (remember caramel coloring outside of the US is a crap shoot).
Flavoring: bragð·efni
Gluten: Gluten

Watch out for maltitol syrup in candy. In Europe it is sometimes made with wheat. Most if not all of their black licorice contains gluten, as does a lot of the chocolate.

We tried the following restaurants:

Sankta Maria: Laugavegur 22 Reykjavik (under Hotel Fron)
This is a Mexican Restaurant. It's pretty good. I shared the nachos with Mike because Gluten Free Traveller had mentioned they were gluten free and our waiter had no idea what I was talking about when I asked if he knew what gluten was. I didn't have a reaction and the food wasn't too expensive.

Indian Mango: Frakkastigur 12 Reykjavik (right off of Laugavegur)
They understood what gluten free meant. The food was just ok and insanely expensive. We paid nearly 80 USD for a beer, two curries, a dish of plain basmati rice and some naan. Not worth it in my opinion, however, I am an Indian food snob.

Fjörugarðurinn: Strandgotu 55 Hafnarfjörður
Vikings... Disney Style. The food was blah. They kind of understood me when I showed them my Gluten Free Travel Card in Icelandic. It was crazy expensive, but Mike needed his viking fix. In hind sight, we would have gone to the other viking restaurant in the city center next to the Puffin Store, (no you cannot buy real puffins there... just giant stuffed ones... I was sad too).

Tabascos: Hafnarstraeti 1-3 Reykjavik
The server seemed to understand gluten free, the food was good and they make the best darn mojito I've ever had, (I saw her crushing up the mint behind the bar). We got the nachos to share and Mike got a burrito, (not gluten free). If I was hungry I would've gotten the chicken tacos... of course.

All in all, I ate a lot of sandwiches on this trip. A LOT. During our road trip, we drove way out past Vik to see the Vatnajökull glacier towards the East and up to Ólafsvík in the West. There aren't very many places to stop and get food to begin with and there were very few gluten free things to eat. If you do a road trip or a bus tour, go to the store, pick up some lunch meat, (check the ingredients for gluten in Icelandic using the words I gave you), and make yourself a few sandwiches. Even if you can have gluten I would suggest doing this. It makes life a lot easier during the 2 hour trek through the vast expanses of beautiful sheep laden nothingness and the sandur.

San Juan Seven Grain's
European Adventure

On your way home, you will most likely do what we did and stop at the Blue Lagoon on the way to the airport since it is 20 minutes away. This was one of the best moments of the trip. the blue lagoon is essentially a giant geothermal swimming hole that serves drinks from the water and has steam rooms and saunas. This was the best 60 USD I've ever spent, (cost includes bus ride from your hotel to blue lagoon and then to the airport plus admission courtesy of Flybus). Make sure to slather yourself with some of that white mud and have a slushy. It's awesome.

Blue Lagoon

Don't, however, do the other thing I did that day... on the way out of the hotel at 8am I ate the last of the cheese and my gluten free bread for breakfast figuring I could get something... anything... at the Blue Lagoon or the airport. You can't. Absolutely everything except the skyr, (delicious low fat yogurt - most flavors don't contain gluten), is touching bread or pasta or has gluten in it. There was nothing safe at the lagoon, the airport or on the plane. I ate two tiny Larabars over the course of 15 hours and was very very unhappy with myself and the three passengers sitting across the aisle from me happily eating their foot long subs with the last three bags of cool ranch Doritos on the plane, (the only gluten free food item I had seen in over 12 hours...) Moral of the story, don't forget to leave sandwich meat for the last day.

Overall it was an amazing trip; one I would do again in a heartbeat... this time manned with more sandwiches and of course European Fanta... because it's just so much better than the stuff they sell in the states.