Icelandic coffee shop opens in Vienna

A new Icelandic coffee shop called Home- Icelandic and Home Cooking opened recently in Vienna, Austria. The menu is inspired by Icelandic culture.

Harpa Hilty Henrysdóttir and her wife Steff Hilty, from Liechtenstein, opened the venue in February. They lived in Ísafjörður before that where Steff worked at local coffee shop Bræðraborg whilst Harpa taught at the local school. "We wanted to move abroad and needed to find something interesting to do. Seeing as Steff is a wonderful cook we decided to open an Icelandic coffee shop somewhere in the German speaking world. Vienna became our choice because it's a family orientated and super friendly city, as my daughters aged 8 and 12 moved with us," says Harpa who adds that perhaps if they had been aware of the Austrian bureaucracy beforehand they might have moved somewhere else instead.

"But we made it through the flood of paper so it all went through and we're really happy here." The couple moved last August and found a suitable venue for the coffee shop in the 9th district.

Most of the staff have Iceland connection although Harpa says that was more of a coincidence. "Our furniture is mostly from thrift stores. "We offer plenty of Icelandic dishes and food inspired by Icelandic culture." Among the dishes on offer are harðfiskur- dried fish, a cake known as Hjónabandssæla, and Icelandic beer from the Einstök brewery. They use fresh Icelandic fish, dried fish from Ísafjörður, salt from Saltverk and Icelandic rhubarb jam.

On the traditional Icelandic bun day the coffee shop offered Icelandic buns, and also on the menu are trout, fish burgers and salted cod dishes. "Apart from the Icelandic ingredients we like to use as many local ingredients as we can. Our coffee is made at a nearby coffee making factory called Coffee Piarates and our other beer comes from a local brewery called Brew Age. Our wines are from a family run vineyard just outside the city and our milk is straight from the farm."

For more information on the Vienna coffee shop visit their Facebook page HERE.