Litlibær

Eating waffles on a historic farm in the Westfjords

May contain traces of advertising.*

When we were on holiday in Ísafjörður with our sons in July 2018, we also took a day trip to Súðavík to the Artic Fox Center and a little further because we had an invitation to eat waffles here in Litlibær.

Litlibær (= "small farm") is a peat farm, very picturesquely located on Skötufjörður. Here from Hvítanes you can also wonderfully see the seals that often frolic off the coast. There is now a small parking lot next to the road where you can stop and watch the animals. The owners of the farm have specially set up a box of binoculars that you can borrow. When we were there there was really a lot of activity in the water, there was a dark head sticking out everywhere, we counted almost 20 seals.

In addition to the binoculars, there is also home-made jam in the box, which you can take with you for 1,000 ISK per jar.

View from the parking lot

Binoculars and jam jars

Looking through binoculars

Seals in the fjord

The Litlibær farm was built in 1895, originally by two families who lived here in semi-detached houses. The kitchens were built slightly next to the main house. The farm meadow covered around 3 hectares. At times around 20 people lived in the house. The floor area of ​​the house was around 28 m², plus two tiny attic chambers.

In one guest room there is a plaque with the children of one family - the couple had a total of 15 children, 6 of whom died in childhood. However, those who survived the first 10 years had a good chance of reaching a blessed old age - many of the surviving children then lived to be over 80 years old.

One of the families later moved out and in 1930 Kristján, the son of one of the builders, took over the farm. The house was lived in by Kristján and his family until 1969.

Old photo of the farm on the Litlibær information board

Today the family of Kristján's youngest child, Kristján Kristjánsson, lives a little further away in Hvítanes and still runs the farm.

The old Litlibær peat house was taken over and restored by the National Museum after being empty for around 30 years; it is now officially owned by the National Museum.

The family now runs a café in the old house in the summer. Sigríður Hafliðadóttir, Kristján Kristjánsson's wife, and her family provide travelers with fresh waffles, homemade cakes and pastries and hot drinks every day from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. during the season.

The inside of the small house is also very cozy and lovingly furnished, with old family photos and souvenirs and old everyday objects of the family hanging everywhere.

The fresh waffles with whipped cream and homemade rhubarb and blueberry jam were really a poem...

...and we all enjoyed it very much.

We also had coffee and hot chocolate, really tasty and creamy.

Simply delicious!

We had a wonderful stay with our children in Litlibær and felt completely at home here - many thanks again to Sigríður and her daughter!

Sigríður Hafliðadóttir and her daughter in the kitchen of Litlibær

To my particular delight, Sigríður also gave me a few of her recipes, for her Bláberjakaka and her "Married Bliss" and also for the blueberry and rhubarb jam. I'm really looking forward to trying the recipes at home!

With one last look from Litlibær across the fjord, we said goodbye to this beautiful, homely piece of earth.

Update September 2019:

For the 2020 season, Sigríður's daughter Guðrún will take over the management of the café.

At a glance:

In addition to the house specialty, waffles, the menu in Litlibær also includes blueberry cake made with locally collected blueberries, hjónabandssæla (the traditional Icelandic rhubarb cake with the beautiful name "married happiness"), apple cake, vanilla cake and of course Kleinur. If you don't want anything sweet, you can also choose ham croissants or pizza rolls.

For waffles and coffee you currently pay 1,200 ISK (as of July 2018), i.e. around €9.60, but you're also tired of coffee.

* Legal notice:

Technically speaking, this is advertising because we were invited to dinner. But we only went to restaurants and bars that we had previously heard good things about and that we found exciting - for a variety of reasons. In that respect, we were honestly thrilled and when we burst into praise, we really mean it.



[Translated from here.]