Kattakaffihúsið

The Cat Café in Reykjavík

May contain traces of advertisement.*

The idea of a cat café has its origin in Asia. Cat lovers, who don't have the possibility to own their own cats, have here the opportunity to relax with coffee and cake in cozy atmosphere and in company with cats. Good for the soul! And sometimes a homeless cat is put up and find someone, who adopts it.

The world-wide first cat café opened in 1998 in Taiwan. Many others followed, mainly in Japan. Since 2012 there are cat cafés in some European cities, too.

In autumn 2017 the Icelandic hygiene law was changed. Now pets are allowed in restaurants in Iceland. On March 1st, 2018 the first cat café opened in Iceland, the "Kattakaffihúsið" in Reykjavík. It's located in Bergstaðastræti 10a, in the heart of the city not far from Hallgrimskirkja and Laugavegur.

There are always at least three cats living in Kattakaffihúsið. During our visit we got to know two of them, Felix and Nebba. The guests are a colorful mix. Many locals, some tourists taking photos, many families with small children, mainly women of different age, with and without children.

On the wall, the large painting of a cat is by Helga Björnsson, one of the Iceland's most famous designers - who coincidentally is the mother of one of the café's owners. Besides this pretty painting she also designed cat pillows and cat cards, which you can find and buy in the café.

There are only two simple rules how to deal with the cats: Don’t pick the cats up and don’t wake them up when they are sleeping. And whenever a cat feels overstrained, it can move back through a cat flap.

Felix was sleeping on his chair in the middle of all the hustle and bustle. From time to time he opened his eyes, took a look around and laid down again.

Nebba, the second cat, is already 10 years old. I guess, her favorite place is on the counter.

We were in Kattakaffihúsið on Iceland's national holiday. Unfortunately it started to rain cats and dogs. Hence we fled into the café. But many other people did do the same. Hence it was completely full and we had to wait for a few minutes, to get a seat. A seat next to Felix.

First we got hot drinks to warm ourselves, a cup of coffee for my husband and a hot chocolate for me.

From the cakes we chose Snickers torte as recommended by the host. The cake comes like most of the café's range form "17 Sortir", a confectionary located in the former storage area of the harbour quarter Grandi. The sweet pastries, cakes, tortes and cupcakes of "17 Sortir" were often blinking at me, when I came along.

All that remains for me is to say: Meow! Or how Islanders say: Mjá!

Overview:

Kattakaffihúsið offers coffee and other hot and cool drinks, various pies, cakes and pastries and vegan sandwiches.

One piece of Snickers torte costs 990 ISK (about 7.90 €, 9.25 $). You can get a muffin for 595 ISK, a chocolate brownie for 600 ISK (about 4.80 €, 5.50 $), eine banana bread, a portion of chocolate cookies and a piece of lemon cake each for 690 ISK (about 5.50 €, 6.50 $). The vegan sandwich costs 990 ISK (about 7.90 €, 9.25 $) and a filled sourdough roll 1.200 ISK (about 9.60 €, 11 $).

A cup of filter coffee or tea is 400 ISK (about 3.20 €, 3.75 $), an espresso 500 ISK (about 4 €, 4.50 $) and a hot chocolate 590 ISK (about 4.70 €, 5.50 $).

Kattakaffihúsið opens every day from 10.00 to 18.00.

* Legal note: 

Formally this article can be graded as advertisement, since we had been invited for the meal. Anyhow, we have chosen only restaurants, which we had heard good things about and which we estimated as interesting. Accordingly we're really delighted, and if we fall into words of praise, these are meant honestly.

[Translated from here.]