VOX Brasserie & Bar — Restaurant in Reykjavik

Just had a terrible experience. We went because they had two dishes with animals we have never tasted before, a good Michelin review and “award winning” cocktails. However, our experience was FAR from what we expected. I’ll admit, we are foodies from New York who have no problem spending good money on an excellent meal/experience. However, we DO have a problem spending good money on a bad meal/experience. We walk 30 minutes to the restaurant. Have an reservation and the host offers us to go in the back and hang our coats (sort of surprised a Michelin rated restaurant that LOOKS as nice as this one has us hang our own belongings). We return and the frazzled host asks us to wait. So regardless of our reservation we wait another 10 minutes before being seated. He offers us to sit down while a waitress is still bending over our table setting it, I decide to wait until she is finished. Our waitress greets us the second we sit down asking us if we’d like something to drink before we’ve even had a chance to open the menu (little things) so we ask her to come back when we’ve had a chance to look. There are no cocktails, no beers, only wines, and as we’re visiting Iceland we’d really prefer to eat and drink local. When she returned we said “I don’t see cocktails here but read online you won some awards and had great ones.” “Oh yes, let me grab you that menu”. Strange they didn’t offer it initially. None of the cocktails sound amazing so we order two that won awards. They both tasted like cough syrup and the restaurant used bottom shelf liquor. Not sure HOW they won any awards but then again Iceland is not known for their cocktails so perhaps the competition was judged on a lower curve than what we’re used to. To be honest, I hate Applebee’s with a burning passion and THEY have better cocktails. I said it. Our waitress completely ignores us, checks on the tables around us, fills the glass of the tables an inch from us while ignoring our empty glasses, never asks us if our drinks are ok, so after about 15 minutes my husband flags her down. I ask her to please fill my water and let her know that we both greatly dislike our drinks and that I would like to order something else and she says “well you can order something else but you ordered this one you have to pay for it.” Astounded I said “Seriously? Wow. No we’re good then, thanks.” And she promptly walked away. At this point I’m ready to walk out. I’m fuming. She comes back after 10 minutes and says “I talked to my manager we’ll exchange it for you.” I said, “thank you. I think I’ll stick with wine then (if those were the award winning drinks I can’t imagine what the rest taste like) I just need to see the menu again”. I’m so flustered and heated at this point I can’t even look at the menu. I’m really good with water, not trusting anything they have, but FEEL BAD (ugh, don’t ask me why, never again) so when a different waitress comes back, having seen all the glasses of wine and their prices (half the price of the cocktails) I feel safe enough saying “just pair up a glass with my meal please.” She presents it, I taste it, (it’s not good but again, after the attitude the first waitress gave when I said I didn’t like the cocktail I felt like I COULDNT say anything. So I say, “it’s ok. It should be fine”. And just deal with it. After our waitress ignores us the rest of the evening, never clearing our bread basket or plates after serving us our meals, WE had to move them to the next table, we again had to flag someone down for the check after sitting waiting again for 15 minutes (our meal took about an hour to come out). And then THAT waitress had to flag down OUR waitress, who was hanging out watching the kitchen, moseying around the restaurant not helping anyone. We got our bill to find out they had charged me 3,190 ISK for one of the WORST glass of wine I’ve ever had in my life. We paid and then when we were leaving yet ANOTHER server grabbed our SIGNED bill and said “you need to put your room number on here” and AGAIN we said “WE ARENT STAYING IN THIS HOTEL. WE...

I was there tonight, i came with my 11 year old son and my husband. No one greeted me when we came and we waited 20 min before anyone came to take drink order. The waiter was young and he went first to the girls next table that arrived after me. Then didn’t come to me even though I repeatedly asked for attention. 20 min later someone finally came and took drink order. Then the drinks did not arrive at the same time, the bread came to the table late with no plates and the butter came later, no plates. We were asking about the menus and were told wrong information on what was available. We asked a different waiter later and they corrected the previous information when we asked.

Then entree came and it was ok, then they took the plates and took my cutlery with, and brought the main course and I had to ask for another set of cutlery. Then we got desert, we had to ask 2 times for a spoon. Then coffee came later (not with the desert) and no sugar nor a spoon so we had to ask for that.

Everything was very amateur and I was hugely disappointed with the service. The food was ok and I have no complains but when you don’t feel treated well in a restaurant it is a big deal. And in the end they charged us everything wrong, forgot some items and overcharged other… we didn’t see it until later so we ended overpaying by a 1000kr not a lot of money but frustrating when you were not even happy with the service.

I used to love coming to vox before Christmas but i doubt I will be...

The Vox restaurant is a nice place to eat if you’re staying at the hotel, but I wouldn’t come here if I was staying somewhere else.

The service is friendly and efficient and the food good.

We all had the lobster soup for starters and it was delicious, and the bread and homemade butter complimented the soup wonderfully.

We had the vegan burger, the entrecôte, and the winter vegetables for dinner. The entrecôte was perfectly cooked and delicious. The winter vegetables also delicious although the pumpkin a bit undercooked and the portion on the small side. The vegan burger was the perfect size and very good but the fries were awful-I would substitute for the sweet potato fries next time as I had them in the bar earlier in the week.

We had the licorice and raspberry dessert. The licorice mousse was delicious and so was the raspberry sorbet but in my opinion the sorbet overpowered the mousse which was a shame.

We had water, cocktails and a beer with dinner and they were all wonderful.

On weekends I suggest booking a table, and even on week days the restaurant can be very full.

The bar at the Hilton Nordic’s has Happy Hour 4-6pm every day which is a popular way to warm...