A Night at Dill Restaurant in Reykjavik, Iceland’s First Michelin Star

I booked DILL six weeks before landing in Reykjavik. Not because I'd done exhaustive research — I'd heard the name once, at a dinner party, from someone who described it as the best meal she'd ever eaten. That was enough for me.

Iceland's first Michelin-starred restaurant sits in a small, almost unmarked space in central Reykjavik. No flashy signage. You could walk right past it. Inside, cracked concrete walls, low lighting, and an open kitchen no bigger than a Manhattan studio apartment. The whole room holds maybe 30 people. 

It started before I even arrived. Ben helped sort my reservation, and from that first interaction, I knew the experience was going to be different. He's the kind of person who makes you feel like a regular before you've ever walked through the door.

The evening unfolds in three stages. You're welcomed at the door with bites — dried fish with fermented black garlic, crispy Icelandic bread — before settling into the lounge for a glass of something cold and bone dry. By the time you're seated in the main room, you've already had three or four courses and somehow feel completely at ease. No stuffiness. No hushed reverence. Just good food and people who are clearly happy to be there.

The tasting menu runs 15+ courses, and the food is a mix of bold and surprising, delicate and precise, and earthy in ways that feel completely intentional. Every single dish tastes as if it came from within 50 miles of where you're sitting. Arctic char with Nordic wasabi — yes, wasabi grown in Iceland by a startup. A chawanmushi made with whelk that had no business being as good as it was. Skyr-based desserts that made me want to rethink every dessert I'd ever liked before. And then the reindeer arrived. It stopped the table. The kind of dish you don't see coming — deeply earthy, precise, and unlike anything I'd had before. Head Chef Gunnar Karl Gíslason has a strong desire to make people happy, and he does that with food by creating unique Icelandic dishes, cooked by someone who grew up eating them, and every plate makes that clear.

Ben came back into the picture throughout the night, guiding the wine pairings with the kind of storytelling that made each pour feel like its own course. The list has a depth that caught me completely off guard — lots of natural wine, producers I'd never heard of. I stopped being surprised after that and just gave in. Joshua was another standout — attentive without hovering, warm without trying too hard. The whole team operates like that. You feel looked after the entire night without ever feeling watched.

DILL is open Thursday through Saturday. Reservations are essential and fill up fast.

SARAH'S RECS: If dining solo or in a pair, sit at the counter; watching Kári and the team work in that tiny kitchen is half the experience.