Messinn á Selfossi

The restaurant "Messinn" in Selfoss

May contain traces of advertisement.*

In Selfoss, a small town in southern Iceland a good 50 km from Reykjavík, the “new city center” opened in summer 2021. Historical buildings from all over Iceland are being recreated in Selfoss, creating a lively city center with shops, restaurants and pubs, a food hall and apartments on the upper floors, and there is now a dedicated parking lot. A cinema is also being planned, as far as I can tell. The first 13 houses of the first construction phase have now been successfully completed. I think the result is really nice and I really enjoy being in the "new city center" (after all, our house is close there and we regularly go to Selfoss).

Now in the summer of 2022, the fish restaurant “Messinn” has opened in one of these “new old houses”.

We were invited to eat at the restaurant at the end of October and try it out - and we really love it, both with the food and the atmosphere.

We were there on a Friday lunchtime and the restaurant was very cozy. Apart from us, there were mostly Icelanders there - some people came in work clothes, alone or in groups, obviously on their lunch break, and some were older couples or even entire families who enjoyed their lunch here.

The name “Messinn” means “the mess” and therefore refers to the dining room of a ship. The name of the restaurant is also implemented very consistently and lovingly in the interior design down to the last detail. We were thrilled by the benches in the bunks on the wall, the ropes as a visual room divider or the dangling “fishing balls”.

Such "fishing balls" or "glass floats" were previously used by fishermen: glass balls were tightly enclosed in artfully knotted bags made of rope and then floated on the surface; they served to keep the ends of the net afloat. Nowadays, plastic balls are mostly used, which are no longer as beautiful as the old "glass floats", but are much more robust.

The "Messinn" restaurant is a fish restaurant specializing in fresh fish every day. There are various starters to choose from on the menu, from the bread basket with butter to the char tartare, the saltfish salad or the fresh fish soup with bread and butter. The starters range in price from €6.60 to €26 for lobster and king prawns).

For the main courses you can choose between fish burgers, fried fish (cod) with fries and chili mayonnaise or pasta with seafood (for the equivalent of around €22 to €25).

The special highlight of the menu are the fried dishes at Messinn:

The food here is served from the kitchen directly to the table in large, cast-iron pans.

All pans are based on changing, seasonal vegetables and Icelandic potatoes - and then there are different types of fish, seafood - and also a vegan version with tofu.

The pans are really big and they invite you to enjoy and share the good food; So you can easily order two different pans for three people and then enjoy eating together, even if not everyone can manage their own pan.

My husband had lúða, i.e. the halibut pan - fresh fried fish in white wine and cream sauce with fresh wild mushrooms and he was completely thrilled, in fact he even raved highly about the various wild mushrooms (not that typical of him otherwise). , which gave the fish pan a very special flavor.

I had gellur - cod tongues fried in garlic butter and served with plenty of fried vegetables, lots of butter, chili and lemon as well as cold cocktail tomatoes and freshly plucked rocket. The dish gets its very special appeal from the different consistencies, sometimes soft, sometimes rather firm, sometimes nice and crunchy, and the different temperatures between the warm and cold components.

The " gellur " is actually not the tongue of the fish, but the muscle that is located underneath the chin of the fish. The muscle meat is surrounded by its own skin, you have to fry it longer than fish fillets and it becomes firmer, but it melts in your mouth when you eat it and leaves a very slightly salty aftertaste. Traditionally in Iceland and Norway, cod tongues are fried lightly floured - and then they taste really great.

For dessert you could choose between a Súkkulaði brownie or a créme brulée, both served with fresh berries and ice cream (price equivalent to just under €15). We were already very full after our fish pans, but it looked so delicious that we couldn't (and didn't want to) resist.

We then decided on the créme brulée, which came with a scoop of ice cream, a very tasty, light sorbet, blueberries, strawberries and a kind of granola, crispy, crunchy oat flakes. The portion was easily served to us with two spoons - and it really tasted very good.

Our conclusion

We definitely enjoyed our meal at “Messinn” in Selfoss and can definitely recommend the restaurant with a clear conscience. The portions were really generous and we were very full in a very, very pleasant way.

I'm looking forward to eating there again when I get the chance - and just enjoying this wonderful food without a camera!

PS:

In the run-up to Christmas, “Messinn” in Selfoss is currently offering an Aðventuhlaðborð, i.e. an Advent buffet. They probably offer fish soup with freshly baked bread, various types of pickled herring, smoked salmon, seafood, of course plokkfiskur and two different types of their delicious pans, as well as mixed desserts, all for 4,990 ISK (just under €35) per person. The Advent buffet is available on 8th/9th, 15th/16th. and December 22, 2022.

On the day before Christmas Eve there is the Skötuhlaðborð - for the Þorláksmessa on December 23rd a very special pre-Christmas buffet is offered, with the typical Icelandic specialties that evening - kæst skata, i.e. boiled rotten rays, served with kneaded fat and mutton tallow, potatoes and turnips, plus rye bread with butter, star rays, plokkfiskur and a fish pan, also with mixed desserts and the meal also costs 4,990 ISK.

Reservations are generally required for the buffets in the run-up to Christmas.

* Legal notice:

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.]