When we announced our November 2026 culinary tour of Iceland, the trip sold out quickly. I wasn’t surprised. Iceland has been on my travel list for a long time, and between the Northern Lights, waterfalls, geothermal pools, dramatic landscapes and fascinating food culture, this is going to be a pretty incredible week.
But life happens, and we’ve had a few cancellations. That means we now have three spots available: one double-occupancy room for two people and one single-occupancy spot.
So, if Iceland has been on your list too, I thought I’d share one of the things I’m most excited about as I look ahead to this trip: the food.
Discovering Iceland Through Its Food
When most people think about Iceland, food probably isn't the first thing that comes to mind. It might not even make the top five reasons to visit the country. But the more I review our itinerary, the more excited I get about experiencing the country through what we’ll eat, drink and cook.
Iceland has an interesting culinary story shaped by its geography and climate. Seafood is naturally a major part of the cuisine, as is lamb, but geothermal energy also plays a fascinating role in how food is grown and prepared. We’re going to experience all of that firsthand rather than simply reading about it.
And because this is a trip for The Chopping Block, we aren’t just going to eat. We’re going to cook, too!
Appetizer at Kol in Reykjavík, one of our dining destinations
Starting with Icelandic Baking
One of our first culinary experiences in Reykjavík will be a hands-on class devoted entirely to Icelandic baking traditions. We’ll prepare multiple traditional baked goods from scratch while learning about the ingredients and techniques behind them.
I love experiencing a destination this way. You can learn a lot about a culture by sitting down at a restaurant, but there’s something different about getting into a kitchen and making the food yourself. And I have a feeling this class may inspire a few baking projects once we get home.
Tomatoes in Iceland? Absolutely
One of the meals I’m most curious about is lunch inside a working tomato greenhouse.
Growing tomatoes in Iceland might sound unlikely, but geothermal energy makes it possible to grow fresh produce year-round. We’ll actually sit among the plants while enjoying cherry tomatoes, Bloody Marys, tomato soup and homemade bread.
It's exactly the kind of experience I love when I travel: something completely connected to the place that you couldn't simply recreate by making a dinner reservation back home.
That same day, we’ll visit a family-run horse and dairy farm where they produce Icelandic skyr and ice cream. I’m particularly interested in tasting real Icelandic skyr at the source rather than pulling a container off the shelf at the grocery store.
Bread Baked by the Earth
Then there’s the geothermal rye bread.
Traditional Icelandic rye bread can be cooked using the heat of the earth itself. The bread is buried in the geothermally heated ground and left to slowly bake for about 24 hours. This video shows how it works.
Video courtesy of Laugarvatn Fontana
We’ll get to see the process firsthand, help dig up the bread and, most importantly, taste it warm. It’s described as sweet and malty, and this may be the food experience I’m anticipating most simply because it is so distinctly Icelandic.
Bring on the Seafood
Of course, I’m also very ready for the seafood.
One day we'll have lunch by Reykjavík's old harbor at a restaurant owned by a retired fisherman. The plan includes hot lobster soup, grilled fish kebabs and fresh local fish such as wolffish or tusk.
Lobster soup and local beer
Seafood is one of my favorite ways to experience a coastal destination because what lands on your plate tells you so much about where you are. Eating fresh Icelandic fish overlooking the harbor sounds pretty perfect to me.
Earlier in the trip, we'll also get a glimpse into one of Iceland's oldest food traditions when we see racks of harðfiskur, wind-dried fish. Cod and other white fish have been preserved using Iceland's cold sea air, salt and time for centuries, dating back to the Viking age.
There Will Be Chocolate
A culinary trip also needs dessert.
In Reykjavík, we’ll visit Omnom, an award-winning Icelandic chocolate maker known for some very creative flavor combinations. Their Lakkrís + Sea Salt chocolate, combining Iceland's love of licorice with sea salt, is one flavor I'm particularly curious to try, even though I am far from a licorice fan!
We’ll also have time for coffee and cocoa at Reykjavík Roasters and visit Skool Beans, a unique café in Vík. These smaller stops are part of what I enjoy most about culinary travel. Sometimes the coffee shop, bakery or chocolate you discover between the big activities becomes one of the things you remember most.
Pizza, Beer and Geothermal Energy
Iceland's geothermal resources make another appearance when we visit a geothermal brewery. We'll taste local beer and settle in for a spread of wood-fired pizzas.
Is pizza the first food you'd associate with Iceland? Probably not. But that's part of the fun. This trip isn't designed around checking off a list of stereotypical Icelandic foods. It's about experiencing how people in Iceland actually eat and how the country's landscape and resources influence its food culture today.
And Then We Get Back into the Kitchen
Toward the end of the trip, we’ll have our second hands-on cooking experience, this time focused on the fundamentals of classic Icelandic cuisine.
We'll work with ingredients such as lamb and fish as we prepare our own dishes, and what we cook will become our farewell dinner.
I can't think of a more fitting way for a group of TCB travelers to wrap up our time in Iceland. After spending the week tasting, exploring and learning about Icelandic food, we'll get into the kitchen together and cook one final meal.
Come Hungry
And all of this is only the food side of the itinerary curated by Onward Travel.
In between meals and cooking classes, we'll explore Reykjavík, soak in the Blue Lagoon, travel the Golden Circle, see waterfalls and black-sand beaches, visit farms and geothermal areas and, hopefully, see the Northern Lights dancing overhead.
But I have a feeling that when we come home, some of our strongest memories will be tied to what happened around the table: tasting warm bread that had just been dug out of the earth, sipping a Bloody Mary surrounded by tomato plants, warming up with lobster soup by the harbor and cooking an Icelandic meal together.
That's what I love about culinary travel. Food gives you another way into a place. You don't just see where you went. You taste it, learn from it and, if we're doing our job right, bring a little bit of it home to your own kitchen.
Our Iceland trip originally sold out quickly, so these cancellations have created an unexpected opportunity to join us. We currently have just three spots remaining: one double-occupancy room for two travelers and one single-occupancy spot.
If experiencing Iceland through its food, culture and incredible landscapes sounds like your kind of adventure, we’d love to have you join us. I know I’m already hungry for this trip!
