Baejarins Beztu Pylsur, the Hot Dog Stand Every Reykjavik Trip Ends Up At

Baejarins Beztu Pylsur is a hot dog stand near the old harbor in downtown Reykjavik, and it has been open since 1937, which makes it older than most of the buildings tourists photograph around it. The name translates to roughly the town’s best hot dogs, and Icelanders will tell you it earned the name rather than picked it. Bill Clinton ate here. So has most of the country at some point.

The pylsur itself, the Icelandic hot dog, is made mostly of lamb rather than the beef and pork blend Americans grow up on, with a little pork and beef mixed in. Lamb gives it a slightly different flavor than a Chicago or New York dog, milder, a little sweeter, and it comes on a warm bun that has often been steamed rather than toasted.

Order it eina med ollu, one with everything, and you get raw white onion, crispy fried onion, ketchup, a sweet brown mustard called pylsusinnep, and remoulade, a mayonnaise based sauce with pickles and capers folded through it. That combination sounds busy on paper and works completely once it is in your hand. It is the order almost every local makes, and it is the one I tell clients to try first before deciding they want it simpler.

This is one of the cheapest real meals you will have in a country that is otherwise expensive to eat in. A single hot dog runs a fraction of what a sit down dinner costs, which matters on a trip where I am already telling every family to pad the food budget more than they think they need. Standing at the counter with a cheap, really good hot dog in your hand after paying Iceland prices for a week feels like a small win every time.

It is an easy stop to build into a walking day rather than its own destination. Pair it with the Sun Voyager and the old harbor on the same loop, since the stand sits right in that stretch of downtown, an easy five minute add to a morning that already includes Hallgrimskirkja or Harpa.

Kids who are picky about food tend to do fine here. It is a hot dog, it looks like a hot dog, and the toppings can be left off entirely for a kid who wants ketchup only. I have never had a client’s child refuse to at least try it, which is more than I can say for a lot of the more adventurous Icelandic food on this list.

Our Reykjavik with kids guide has the rest of what to eat downtown and how it fits around everything else worth doing on foot.