THE GROUND UP

Reykjavík bistro Matur og Drykkur offers a fresh take on Icelandic cuisine, preparing traditional dishes with new and inventive twists.

For most of the 1,100 years since Iceland was settled, the island’s food had more to do with surviving the long, sunless winters than it did with making something that was remotely palatable. In order to eat when the ground was frozen and the snow too thick to venture outside, fish was pickled in whey or smoked with a combination of hay and dung. Then there were rank foods like or rotten skate, which would stink up clothes so badly diners would have to toss them out afterward. Throw in 500 years of Danish rule, which did little