Visiting Iceland on Business?
Doing business in a foreign country is a lot easier if you know where to stay, where to meet with your clients, where to eat and how best to get around.
As locals doing business in Iceland, we’re well placed to offer advice on the best options available to Iceland business travelers. As most of Iceland’s business travelers stop or stay in Reykjavik, the following covers services in and around Reykjavik only. These are just a few of our favourites; as we review more we will add them here.
Places to Stay | Restaurants | Getting Around
Places to Stay in Reykjavik
Hilton Reykjavik Nordica | Grand Hotel Reykjavík | Hotel Holt Reykjavik
Hilton Reykjavik Nordica
5 stars
Hilton Reykjavik Nordica is a contemporary Scandinavian style hotel. With wooden floors, clean lines and furnished with soft colours, the hotel is minimalist yet welcoming.
Conveniently situated in the financial district of the capital, it’s only 5 minutes’ walk from the outdoor park, Laugardalur. The hotel provides a complimentary shuttle bus service to the city center. The Old Town, where there a loads of great restaurants and cafes, is a 5 minute drive by car but walking back on a late night out can seem a bit of a trek.
Guest rooms are bright and spacious and many offer spectacular mountain or sea views. They also have 11 stylish function rooms for up to 650 guests.
The Hilton’s restaurant VOX, is renowned for its world class cuisine, and the VOX bistro for its Sunday lunch. Although the food is still very good, weekday lunch in the bistro is a bit of a slow affair.
The Nordic Spa is the perfect place to relax. The service is second to none and it offers an excellent range of spa and beauty treatments; facial therapies, health massage, skin treatments, manicures and pedicures. Facilities include a steam room, a sauna, and a fitness facility.
Guests staying on The Executive Floor have complimentary access to Nordica Spa as well as The Executive Lounge, which has a panoramic view over Reykjavik.
Independent Review – The Hilton Nordica
Grand Hotel Reykjavík
4 stars
The Grand Hotel Reykjavik is an impressive high rise building with a cavernous spectacular glass atrium, furnished in striking red leather sofas and chairs and contemporary art.
Rooms are very light and spacious, with bleach blond wood furniture and floors in true Scandinavian style, although the bathrooms can be a little cramped. Views from the huge picture windows from your room are incredible, assuming you don’t get a room overlooking the lobby.
The first-class à la Carte restaurant, Brasserie Grand, offers a varied menu to suit every taste. Its chefs offer both international delights and mouth-watering, fresh Icelandic seafood specialities; it’s an excellent place to have lunch or the full 4-course dinner menu.
There is a well equipped fitness centre and spa, and the Laugardalslaug Iceland’s largest swimming pool complex, is a short walk away.
The staff at The Grand Hotel Reykjavik are very attentive, professional and polite. In fact, the hotel has only one real negative…it’s location. Set in a quite non-descript suburb of Reykjavik, too far to walk to the centre and with no nightlife to speak of, it’s not in the most convenient or interesting location.
Independent Review – The Grand Hotel Reykjavík
Hotel Holt Reykjavik
4 stars
Hotel Holt is a quaint first class hotel, situated on a quiet street, within 5 minutes walking distance from the heart of Reykjavik. Holt Hotel offers a refined combination of comfortable elegance and fastidious efficiency. All rooms, lounges, conference facilities and hallways at Hotel Holt are adorned with original Icelandic art, representing the largest privately owned art collection in Iceland. The historical library, lounge, sitting room and bar are elegantly comfortable and the restaurant, Restaurant Gallery, is one of the most renowned in Iceland. Hotel Holt website.
The Holt Hotel is wonderfully situated in a quiet residential neighborhood but close to everything in Reykjavik. The guest rooms are large and well appointed and the hotel is full of charm everywhere – from the lobby to the hotel bar to the restaurant to the three rooms in which we were staying. Read more of this Hotel Holt Independent Review.
Stayed at Hotel Holt for a couple of days of R&R after a business trip in the Nordic area. The pros: location is key – very quiet, even on a Saturday night (save for some singing revelers at 3 AM) and only a short walk (5 mins) to the main walking area. The staff was extremely hospitable and welcoming and gave great advice about what to see and what to avoid. Read more of this Hotel Holt Independent Review.
Restaurants
VOX – New Nordic | Perlan – Gourmet | Laekjarbrekka – Traditional Icelandic | Sjavarkjallarinn – Asian influenced Icelandic fusion
VOX
Savor ‘New Nordic’ cuisine in Iceland’s first 5-star restaurant at the Hilton Reykjavik Nordica hotel. Enjoy a flavorsome bistro meal, treat yourself to a specialist dish, expertly prepared using fresh, local ingredients or simply relax with a drink in the stylish, minimalist surroundings of VOX. VOX Website
We chose to have lunch at the Vox Bistro on the final day of our trip, a Friday. We arrived just after 12pm to find the Bistro already beginning to fill up. Vox offers a buffet at lunchtimes which looked and smelt fantastic and clearly is very popular with locals. Read more of this VOX Independent Review
I stayed in the Hilton so of course had to have dinner in VOX one night. Myself and my wife enjoyed our meal but came out thinking that it was a slightly strange experience. The menu is very small and there is no vegetarian options. Read more of this VOX Independent Review
Perlan
Reykjavik’s most striking building by day and its finest restaurant by night, Perlan aka The Pearl is a favourite for business meetings. While your taste buds delight, you can enjoy a spectacular panoramic view of Reykjavik and beyond as the restaurant gently completes a full rotation every two hours. Perlan Website
I had no hesitation as I chose the “gourmet menu” of Whale carpaccio with ginger- and chilli-spiced pear compote; grilled lemon sole with baby pak choi; Guillemot with sage spiced figs, vegetable terrine, and peas puree; skyr with gin jelly; and cassis ice cream. It was a veritable feast, and my mouth is watering as I relive the gastronomic experience through this journal. It was certainly not cheap (5590 KR), but my wife opted for a less-expensive alternative of a fillet of lamb in a pecan-nut crust with a rosemary sauce, glazed carrots, and garlic confiture (3980 KR). Read this Perlan Independent Review
Great food, lovely view you can see the whole city in 2 hours as the restaurant revolves. We were in Reykjavik on honeymoon and decided to treat ourselves to a swanky night out and the perlan really delivers. The fresh fish specialities were terrific the salt cod dish was particularly good. Read this Perlan Independent Review
Laekjarbrekka
Dine in this beautifully restored house, with an eventful 150 years of history behind it.
The black wooden house was built by a rich Danish merchant as a bakery shop in the 1830s. Restored in 1979, the restaurant is a throw back to how Reykjavik was in the 1800s. Laekjarbrekka serves traditional Icelandic food, ranging from Icelandic spring lamb to the lobster for which they are renowned. Laekjarbrekka website
The lobster feast consisted of a cream of lobster soup with cognac (a better version of a lobster bisque), grilled lobster en croute, and a dessert involving icecream and a waffle. It was amazing.
The ambiance of the restaurant would be romantic for any couple. There were candles lit at every table, and the wait staff was very attentive. Read more Laekjarbrekka Independent Review
Sjavarkjallarinn
Located in the oldest cellar in Reykjavík, visitors enjoy Asian influenced Icelandic fusion cuisine in a casual but sophisticated environment, at par with the most cosmopolitan eateries of London or New York. Sjavarkjallarinn website
Reservations are strongly recommended for this excellent Asian-influenced seafood restaurant in Reykjavík’s oldest cellar. Run by an award-winning chef, the “Exotic” menu features a delicious mixture of items that might include anything from kangaroo to salted cod with chili. The atmosphere is sophisticated but casual.Sjavarkjallarinn Review
And I don’t use those words lightly. Highly intricate seafood dishes, each unique, are as stunning visually as they are complex on the palate. Each dish had an impressively unusual layering of many flavors and textures that in less skilled hands (which would be most) would just be a mashup, but here everything worked symphonically. Sjavarkjallarinn Independent Review
Getting Around
To and From the Airport | In and around Reykjavik
To and From the Airport
If you’re flying into Iceland you will likely land at Keflavik International Airport, about 48 km from Reykjavik. To get from the airport to Reykjavik:
By Bus
The Flybus service runs between Keflavik Airport and Reykjavík, and takes about 45 minutes. It arrives to pickup and drop off passengers in connection with all arriving and departing flights. The bus’s first stop in Reykjavik is Reykjavik Main Bus Terminal, before it continues on to the major hotels and guesthouses.
You can buy a ticket for the FlyBus on board. They accept credit cards. A one-way adult fare costs 1.950 ISK.
By Car
The route from Keflavik Airport to Reykjavik is straight forward, and takes about 45 minutes in a car.
The cost for a standard taxi to Reykjavik is in the range of 12 – 18,000 ISK. You could consider renting a car from around 7,000 ISK a day. Here at Procar, you can choose from a large luxury fleet, and we even let you pickup in Keflavik and drop off in Reykjavik.
In and around Reykjavik
Taxis Reykjavik
There are a number of taxi companies operating in Reykjavik that you can call almost anytime of the night or day. Reykjavik taxis have official mileage meters and fares are charged at standard rates. Most taxis take credit cards.
Reykjavik Car Rental
There are a number of car rental companies operating in Reykjavik, with cars to rent from around 7,000 ISK a day. If you are looking for executive cars or luxury jeeps to get around, we have a large fleet of quality vehicles including Mercedes, Nissan Patrols and Range Rovers.
You can pick your rental car up from our offices at Fiskislod 45, 101 Reykjavík. Or pick up from our car rental desk at Reykjavik airport. We can have a car ready for you in minutes.
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