The story
Crafted with passion, served with love
A Counter Like No Other in Reykjavík
Eleven seats. That is all that stands between you and one of the most singular dining experiences in Iceland. ÓX operates as a restaurant-within-a-restaurant, tucked inside Sümac on Laugavegur, and securing one of those seats — arranged in an L-shape around an open kitchen in the tradition of a Japanese counter — requires both determination and timing.
Doors open at 7 pm, sharp. Guests arrive together, and from that moment a three-hour performance begins. Two chefs work in full view, cooking directly for the room in a format that collapses the distance between kitchen and table entirely.
Radical Icelandic Cooking
What unfolds over those three hours is described by the White Guide — which has recognised ÓX at Global Masters level — as "a rather radical take on Icelandic cooking traditions." That phrase carries weight. This is not Icelandic cuisine presented as folklore or nostalgia; it is something more searching, more considered, shaped by the discipline of counter dining and the intimacy that comes with it.
The White Guide likens the experience to a sacred feast in Valhalla — elaborate, and equally difficult to get into. The comparison is playful, but the underlying point is serious: ÓX occupies a rare position in Nordic dining, recognised among the very best that the region produces.
Why It Matters
With only eleven covers per service, ÓX operates at a scale that most restaurants cannot or will not attempt. Every detail reaches every guest. The kitchen is the room; the room is the kitchen. For anyone willing to plan ahead and claim one of those seats, the reward is a form of Icelandic cooking that is genuinely hard to find anywhere else.
Recognition