[upbeat music playing]
[Phil] Here's a word you need to know when you come to Reykjavik: pylsa.
What does it mean?
Hot dog time! Yes!
[playful music playing]
[Phil] In Iceland, everyone's nuts about the hot dogs here.
It's just a thing.
-Can we share a few things? -Yes, please.
[Phil] Can we have a hot dog with everything,
and can we have your pulled pork and pulled lamb?
Oh my God, that's amazing.
I think I might want this back.
[playful music resumes]
It's spectacular.
[Lily] Oh, this one is a little spicy.
[Phil] Delightful!
I think that's my favorite.
-Me too. I did not expect it. -I give it to you.
See, this is why you travel with a family.
-No other reason. -[laughs]
[upbeat theme music playing]
♪ A happy, hungry man ♪
♪ Is traveling all across The sea and the land ♪
♪ He's trying to understand ♪
♪ The art of pasta Pork, chicken, and lamb ♪
♪ He will drive to you ♪
♪ He will fly to you ♪
♪ He will sing for you ♪
♪ And he'll dance for you ♪
♪ He will laugh with you ♪
♪ And he'll cry for you ♪
♪ There's just one thing He asks in return ♪
♪ Somebody please, somebody please ♪
♪ Can somebody ♪
♪ Somebody feed Phil? ♪
♪ Somebody feed him now ♪
[evocative music playing]
[Phil] When I first hear about Iceland,
I think,
"Oh, that's going to be cold."
"That's going to be remote and maybe, uh, a little forbidding."
And then you see the language and you think, "Uh-oh."
Every name here is very long
and difficult for someone like me to pronounce.
I was always told it was never much of a food destination,
unless you were on a dare.
But I came anyway, and guess what?
They say it feels like another planet,
but it's not another planet.
It's not that hard to get to.
I see on a map it's between New York and Europe.
Plus, I hear it's not all sheep's head and fermented rotten shark anymore,
which is great because I'm not doing that.
So I'm in.
I'm bringing Monica and Lily with me, and they're going to have a nice vacation,
and I'm going to work, work, work really hard as I always do.
We're going to explore the food in a minute,
but since so much of Iceland's soul is rooted
in the natural wonders of this place, I'm starting my trip outside.
There's a man here named Gunnar Freyr Gunnarsson.
[epic music playing]
[Phil] He's an adventurer and a photographer
who wrote to me on Instagram,
and for years has been saying I should come to Iceland.
[Gunnar] You can see almost after every turn,
something else's happening.
So you never get tired when you're driving here.
[Phil] I've never seen anything like it where you can drive an hour
and see mountains, volcanoes, green lush fields,
streams running through waterfalls, sheep, rams, goats.
It's a National Geographic special.
[Gunnar] You can see the horses over there. Yeah, look there.
-And there. -[Phil] Wow!
[Gunnar] We're riding now through volcanic landscapes.
The only other landscape like that that I've seen is Hawaii.
Also formed by volcano, on the other side of the world.
This is a land built on and by volcanoes.
One of them is going off right now as I sit here.
Ooh! [giggles]
[Phil and Richard laugh]
[gentle music playing]
[Phil] It's kind of windy and chilly here.
-[Gunnar] Yes. -Even though it's summer.
But look how I'm dressed, and look how you're dressed.
Yeah. [laughs]
[Phil] Do I want to say the name of the lake? What is it?
[producer] Lake Kleifarvatn.
That's not so hard. Lake Kleifarvatn.
[Gunnar] I love that feeling that you get in Iceland
where you're just all alone in nature and feeling all the elements.
[Phil] But not just nature,
incredible unique nature like nowhere else.
[Gunnar] Yes. Pretty much.
-[Phil] We're a half hour from the city. -It's amazing.
[Phil] Amazing.
[gentle music playing]
[Gunnar] I have set up something for you in the cave here.
-I've heard that before. -[laughs]
[Phil] Wow, look at this!
-So this is where you live. -[laughs]
[Phil] You got a whole coffee setup.
-[Gunnar] That's right. -It's like a science kit.
Nice view, too.
[Gunnar] There we go.
-In Icelandic, you say skál. -Skál!
[Gunnar] Skál, my friend.
What I have for you here, it's called--
In Icelandic, it's called flatkaka.
[both] Flatkaka!
[Gunnar] Which means the flat cake, but it's not cake, it's bread.
-[Phil] That's like a pita! -We'll put butter on it.
And some smoked lamb.
Wow. Smoked lamb. Looks like smoked ham.
[Gunnar] Yeah, exactly.
-I love it. That smoky flavor. -Yes.
[Phil] Mm!
I'm eating in a freakin' cave, on Lake Veivarvatn!
[producer] You just butchered that.
[laughter]
Kleifarvatn.
I got it right the first time. Why don't we just use that, Richard?
[Richard giggles]
This here, dried fish. Have you tried that?
-That's not that shark I heard about? -Uh, no.
[laughing] It's not the shark you heard about.
Smoking and drying, pickling is the way that people preserve food here.
The texture is very dry.
-It's like a baccalà. -Yeah. It's like fish jerky, basically.
-Aha. -Because it's so dry,
it's nice to put a generous amount of butter.
By the way, my shoe would be good with that butter.
[Gunnar laughs]
[Phil] All right, here we go.
[Gunnar, laughing] It's very dry.
[Richard chuckles]
[Gunnar] Everything that you're tasting here is traditional Icelandic food
that Vikings and people have been eating for centuries.
You know I said my shoe might be good with the butter?
[laughs]
Do not try this with dentures.
But not everything's so tough to swallow.
Thankfully, some Icelandic traditions are soft,
like this skyr yogurt with cream and berries
and some beautiful edible flowers Gunnar foraged right outside this cave.
That's gorgeous!
It turns out I like nature!
[Gunnar laughs]
[pleasant music playing]
[Phil] So now to the city.
Reykjavik, Iceland, is the world capital closest to the Arctic Circle.
So at the height of summer, the sun barely sets,
which means more daylight and more time for pastries.
[upbeat music playing]
[Richard] Is it Braud & Company?
Brauð og Co.
-[corrects Phil] -[Phil repeats in Icelandic]
[producer] Yeah. Okay.
[repeats in broken Icelandic]
[Richard] Oh, God.
Forgive me, Icelanders. Brauð og co. It means Bread & Company.
And it's a must-stop bakery in a town full of great bakeries.
Who's the manager?
[producer] Víðar.
[Richard] Oh God.
[Phil] Vidar.
-Hello! -I'm Phil.
-Hello, welcome to Iceland. -Nice to see you.
-Hello, people! Hi, hi, hello! -[all] Hi!
-[Phil] Americans, I detect. Yes? -[women] Yeah.
What are you doing here?
[woman 1] We went all over Europe. We wanted to try something new.
[Phil] Well, this is new.
New for me. Big coat in July is new for me.
-Can you set up my friends with pastries? -Yeah, of course.
-Oh, thank you! -Fine by me!
[women laugh]
[Vidar] Yes. You're gonna try the cinnamon rolls.
-That's the rock star. -[Phil] Oh, it's warm!
[woman 2] Mm!
This is what people come for. Straight from the oven.
-Oh, wow. -Oh, wow.
Best cinnamon roll I ever had.
[Phil] This is why you come to Iceland, I guess.
-[woman 3] For sure. -[Phil] Where'd you all meet?
Some of us went to high school together and some went to college.
We started traveling last summer and went five weeks around Europe,
and decided we gotta do it again.
I didn't travel till I was 23.
I didn't get to Europe or anything, and it changed my whole life,
and I'll bet it did you too.
-We're 23 now. -Oh, perfect!
I love this. This is great. What else should we eat?
-[laughter] -[Vidar] This is a happy marriage cake.
Rhubarb jam and like a crumble cake.
-This is very Icelandic. -[Phil] Very Icelandic!
[Vidar] Yeah. This is something that all the grandmas make in Iceland.
-Really? -And everybody has a secret recipe.
-[Phil] My grandma never made this. -Mm!
-Stupid Grandma. -[laughing]
[playful music playing]
[women] Oh wow!
[Vidar] Icelandic people are very traditional
when it comes to bakeries.
-But we wanted to do something new. -[Phil] It's well done.
It's well done. That's very Nordic.
[Phil] It's great.
Look at the geniuses. I love this.
[jaunty music playing]
They're playing my song!
-[Vidar] That's the bread-slicing machine. -[woman 1] I like this.
-It's bakery house party. -Yeah.
Brauð og co.
-Good, right? -[producer] Yeah.
I'm Icelandic!
Some happy marriage cake for the wife?
-Yeah. -[woman 2] Of course.
-I need a happy marriage. -[laughing]
[rock music playing]
[Phil] Surrounded by the cold North Atlantic,
fishing's always been one of Iceland's main industries.
I mean, there's great fish everywhere, like at this place.
Seabaron is exactly the kind of restaurant you look for on a vacation.
Super casual, with one of the most delicious things you ever ate.
This is lobster soup.
Oh, that's good.
This soup is so good, with the most tender, beautiful,
generous pieces of lobster you ever had.
Why is it so tender?
Aha! Because it's not lobster the way we think of lobster.
Lobster in Icelandic also means langoustine,
which is even rarer and even better than lobster.
Looking like a shrimp with dainty claws,
langoustines are expensive and tough to find in the U.S.,
but they are local to these waters.
So I say call it whatever you want.
I call it, "Mm-hmm-mm!"
And then come these gorgeous char-grilled skewers
of the freshest possible fish.
Never had wolffish.
[producer chuckles]
It's so simple. You're on the water.
It's everything you love about vacation.
So soft and tender.
Let's try with the garlic sauce, shall we?
[giggles]
[Phil] Have you ever seen a wolffish?
It makes you go, "Awoo!"
Much better-looking as a kebab.
Sorry, wolffish.
[upbeat music playing]
[Phil] Reykjavik has a great mix of old and new architecture.
Small traditional structures paired with amazing modern buildings,
like this incredible church that looks like it's about to blast off.
And the futuristic Harpa concert hall,
with its exterior inspired by the island's rock formations.
[propulsive music playing]
[Phil] Some even seem to straddle the old and new,
like this building with a turf roof.
I just so happen to be meeting the architect who designed it,
Shruthi Basappa.
She's also a great food writer, and she's joining me for lunch
at a place in town called Sumac.
This is kind of like the old part of Reykjavik
when it was first settled as well.
You're pretty much in the heart of Reykjavik
-It's so charming, isn't it? -It is.
[Phil] What brought you here?
My husband's Icelandic, and we met in Spain when we were students.
-Yeah. -And I moved here for the weather.
[laughs]
[sizzling]
[Phil] There's a chef here who fell in love with the Middle East,
came back to Iceland and brought the foods of the Middle East
to Reykjavik.
[Shruthi] The flavors of the Levant and the Middle East,
it's so diametrically different from Icelandic food,
traditional Icelandic flavors.
I'm finding that the world is more open to the rest of the world wherever I go.
[Shruthi] Yes.
[Phil] Here we go.
-That's beautiful. -[waitress] These are very spicy.
[Phil] And right on cue, the rest of the world shows up.
Hummus, pita, Greek halloumi cheese
and fried Icelandic oyster mushrooms.
-I'm going to do this, right? -Yes. Go ahead.
-That's the way to do it. -I love that.
-Yeah. -Mm!
This is exactly the kind of mash-up that I love.
We've never eaten better food in Iceland before.
It didn't have a great reputation before, food-wise.
In the past, like, there was no cuisine to speak of. It is survival mode.
We are an island nation.
We're not thinking about enjoyment, luxury.
-Food is just sustenance. -Yes.
[Shruthi] You know, we eat sheep's head and fermented shark and rotten shark--
I'm not eating rotten shark. Are you?
-No. [laughs] -Have you tried it?
I've smelled it, and I think that's enough trying.
I thank God for the pioneers that came before me.
[Shruthi] But the thing is also now we have all of this access to ingredients.
We are at the peak of like Icelandic food. And it's being driven by chefs.
[Phil] Well, this is fantastic.
-Are you wearing an Icelandic sweater? -I am, I got it yesterday!
-This is our Icelandic summer. -But it's July.
I notice if I can see the water, and it sees me see it, it sends wind.
Yeah. [laughs]
Then it feels like you're standing in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean,
which you are, basically.
-[waitress] Icelandic lamb ribs. -[Phil] Oh! I've been waiting for lamb!
That is my favorite dish. So, it's just a glaze.
And then you have like, lentils, grilled grapes and fried almonds.
-[Phil] Wow. -It's really texturey, really fun.
[Phil] Delicious.
It's Icelandic lamb done Mediterranean style.
Mm-hmm. A lot of Icelandic food, it's either smoky, salty, or sweet.
It's always these three components,
but we've really broadened our palate here.
And I think it showcases lamb in such a good way.
Amazing fish, amazing lamb.
[Richard] What's the chef's name?
[producer] Thráinn.
[Richard laughs]
How about a Bob once in a while?
[laughter]
[soothing music playing]
[Phil] Iceland is an adventurer's paradise.
You can camp, you can hike, you can climb glaciers,
see wildlife, even walk through something that looks like this if that's your thing.
Look, here I am doing all this…
Yeah!
…in spirit.
So, what does Richard have me doing today?
I'm going to go in the coldest water on the Earth.
[guide] Let's get suited up in a nice, dry suit.
Ooh! Not so tiny anymore. Ooh!
Philip, it's very comfortable.
-It looks very comfortable. -[laughs]
One of the famous snorkeling and scuba diving places in the world
is called Silfra.
[guide] All right, Phil. Go in here.
The reason this is so fantastic for people who like this kind of thing
is that you can actually touch the two tectonic plates.
North America and the Eurasian tectonic plate.
You can literally swim between them and touch both sides at the same time.
Also, because this is glacier water,
it's crystal clear.
You can see way, way, way, way down.
I have to say, all these things I just told you, I don't care about.
-Then why going in? -Ow, ow, ow.
[Monica] Oh! Toe.
I--I hurt my toe last week,
and… and it hurt just getting into this thing.
[guide] Now you pull it good way up.
This is called a dry suit, meaning I'm going to stay dry.
[guide] Lift your arms up.
[Phil] Then you have this thermal suit, and you have to squeeze into this thing
like a sausage.
[guide] One, two, three.
Around and tighten it as tight as it can be!
[guide] Let me know how this feels.
[in high-pitched voice] Okay, that's great.
[Monica] That's fine.
And you start wondering, why do I need this kind of protection?
-Your lips are a little purple. -[Richard] Your eyes are gonna pop out.
Now why? Why?
Because the water is just barely allowed to be water.
It's one degree above not water.
-Live long and prosper. -[guide laughs]
[marching music playing]
[Phil] Welcome to the saddest episode of Teletubbies.
[guide] We are almost in the water.
[Richard] How does it feel?
I don't know if you can see what I'm doing.
-[Monica] Good. -[guide] It's good?
[Monica] Yeah.
I can barely breathe. I feel like my head is about to pop off my body,
and now we're going in.
[guide] We'll walk carefully on our heels down to the water.
[Phil] I heard that Tom Cruise has done this.
So I'm exactly like him, aren't I?
[guide] There you go.
Let me just tell you, the moment I went in,
water, in.
I couldn't have been wrapped more tightly.
In my ear, up my nose. I can't breathe. My hands are freezing.
The mouth, which is the only thing exposed is frozen solid
the moment you touch the water.
-[Monica] Woo-hoo! -[Phil] You know who was fine with it?
Monica!
-[guide] It's fun, right? -[Monica] Yeah!
[Phil] Yeah, very good.
Is it beautiful? Yes, but I can't think of anything except water's getting in.
It shouldn't be getting in.
We had all these precautions, so that no water would get in.
Water got in, Richard. Water got in.
[Richard laughs]
[guide] How are you both feeling?
[Monica] This is amazing!
Water up the nose…
[guide] Phil, do you want to continue the tour?
John, the director, and Richard, they're so excited
that I'm going to touch these two tectonic plates,
but let's be honest.
I get ten minutes into this thing.
Okay, I go back now.
I'm like this big, helpless, hapless Jewish otter.
[guide] Yeah. I bring you back.
You saw Silfra, how'd you like it?
[Phil] I love it.
-[John] Hey, Richard. -Yeah?
[John] You're not really touching both tectonic plates.
Now you tell me?
[John] You're in the valley between two tectonic plates,
but you're not touching them.
[Richard] Are you cold?
[giggling]
You hear them laughing?
[mocking giggle] Funny. Funny show. I quit. I quit.
[Richard] The conquering hero.
[Phil] By the way, I wanted to go here. You know why?
Because the water is 90 degrees.
You know who did go? Richard and the whole crew.
[pop music playing]
[laughing]
-[Phil] Everybody went! -Ah!
The whole crew went. Everyone had the best time.
"You have to go!" "Okay, when can I go?"
Uh, there really isn't time for you to go, but you know what you can do?
Freeze your butt off at Silfra.
[men giggling]
[upbeat fiddle music playing]
We're going for a little Italian tonight.
That's right. Italian in Reykjavik.
There's a restaurant called Primavera, and the location is gorgeous.
You can drive your ship right up to this place.
Thanks for the lift!
Opened by Chef Leifur Kolbeinsson in 1993
when the Reykjavik food revolution was in its infancy,
Primavera has an interesting claim to fame.
Correct me if I'm wrong. Is it true that he introduced fresh pasta to Iceland?
-Absolutely. -I think so.
-That's quite, you know, that's amazing. -Yeah.
-You're like The Beatles. -[laughing]
-They made pasta? [laughs] -[laughs]
Bringing me here is Chef Gunnar from the Michelin-starred Dill
that put Icelandic cooking on the map.
Everyone was cooking like France foods. That was the only cuisine.
So I said, "There must be something else out there."
Start going to Italy, which wasn't a thing to go abroad as often we do now.
No. Absolutely not.
-You fell in love with pasta. -[Leifur] And just generally Italy.
So I started to follow the Italian kitchen.
You don't have to sell me. To Italy.
-[Phil giggles] -Cin cin.
-Cin cin.
I'm gonna start, we're gonna have a little bite of burrata,
which we import from Puglia.
We get it fresh every week.
But 30 years ago, we didn't have all the wines imported.
We didn't have olive oil, polenta or rice.
There was no way to get it?
Cheeses, prosciuttos and salamis,
they were not allowed to import foreign meat, so…
-And now you can. -Now we can.
Baked burrata.
I was not expecting baked burrata and tomatoes in Iceland.
We made some tomato jam. We have pangrattato on top.
A little bit of olive oil from Chianti.
[Phil chuckles] Mm!
Sometimes you don't need a lot of different things
to make something delicious.
[Leifur] That's right, when you start with great ingredients.
[Phil] Yeah. This is amazing.
I'm in Italy.
Look.
-What kind of pasta are you making? -[Leifur] We're making very fine--
It's called tagliarini.
We're gonna serve it with brown butter, noisettes, sage and walnuts.
So it's very simple. And Parmesan.
-Do you have a favorite dish he makes? -[Gunnar] I believe it's this one.
[Phil] Did you request it?
-I did not. -[Phil] He knows you like it.
[Gunnar] But last time I ate here, I ate that one.
[Phil] Mm!
This is so good.
-[Phil] This is a Northern Italian dish. -A Northern Italian dish.
It's a trip there.
Wow! So when you introduce fresh pasta
to people that have never had it, do their heads explode?
-[Leifur] No, it took years. -What?
-[Leifur] Got plates thrown in a kitchen. -You didn't!
[Leifur] "What is this? This is not how we cook our pasta."
We cook it for 25 minutes, and it's cooked.
This is undeniable. I just don't believe it.
And then Icelanders, everybody had to have potatoes with their main course.
-[Leifur] Yeah. -So now they just got pasta.
[all laughing]
Thank you, Chef. I'm full.
We'd have white truffles in November.
I'm not coming back in November.
-What? -Too cold.
-No, it's perfect in November. -What do you mean?
It's nice?
Yeah. Like, I like the winters here a lot. It doesn't get really that cold.
-[Phil] This is affogato! I know things! -[Leifur] Very good.
[Phil] Wow!
Oh, this is nice.
-[Gunnar] Perfect. -[Phil] Thank you!
Mm!
[Gunnar] The Italians really know what they're doing.
Fantastic. How do you say fantastic?
[producer] Um. Frábært.
Frábært!
[gentle music playing]
There's geothermal heating and power that is roaring under Iceland.
And they've harnessed this power for energy,
for heating, and look, for cooking.
Look how random it seems to be. That spot is cool.
But right next to it is super hot. Do not stand on that.
[Siggi] Exactly. We have boiling water coming up from here.
[Phil] Yes.
[Siggi] Right here behind us, we have this big hot spring.
We use this one to heat up all the houses in the village.
[Phil] This is my new friend Siggi, and he's going to show us
a really cool way to bake bread.
Okay, so here's the bread that we put on yesterday.
-[Phil] Yesterday. -[Siggi] Yes.
[Phil] So, 24 hours it's been underground?
And you can see here, the energy is gonna burst out.
The energy's gonna burst out. Do I need to stand back from the energy?
-Oh, I see the bubbling! -Yeah.
[Phil] Wow!
Let's rewind a little bit.
Siggi mixed up bread dough like you would normally do,
put it in a lidded pot, wrapped it in plastic
and buried it in this boiling sand.
You can see how powerful this is.
[Phil] Whoa, whoa, whoa.
-Right up here. -[Phil] Look at you with bare hands.
Very hot. Look at that!
-[Siggi] From the earth. -[Phil] Nature's kitchen.
[Siggi] Nature's kitchen.
[Phil] Oh!
[Siggi] Perfect!
[jazzy music playing]
[Phil] Siggi.
It's like a beautiful cake. Look at this.
Come on!
It smells like sweet rye bread.
-Can I do this? -Go for it, go for it.
[chuckling]
[Phil] So good.
-It's dessert. -[Siggi] Thank you.
[Phil] This bread is great by any standard.
This was not, "This bread is okay
for having been cooked under the sand in a geothermal,
uh, uh… water… bubbling earth, uh, thing."
I'm very technologically advanced.
[jazzy music continues]
Then we have this wonderful trout here from the lake.
[Phil] Oh boy!
[Siggi] Yeah, it's smoked on the farm on the other side there.
[Phil] Fantastic.
-So you put butter. -[Siggi] Butter.
-[Phil] And the smoked trout. -Right.
It goes wonderful together because the fish is a bit salty.
Yes.
The bread is a bit sweet, so it makes this perfect balance.
-[Phil] Wow. -Here we go.
-Cheers. -Cheers, my friend.
-Mm! -Mm.
This is the bite of Iceland. That's what I feel.
[Siggi] Yeah. It is amazing.
[upbeat music playing]
[Phil] Chris Burkard is an adventurer and a photographer.
His images are gorgeous.
He really captures this place.
Dude, this is it. This is it right here. If they get a wave…
[surfers] Woo-hoo!
[Phil] We're going to one of his favorites,
in the first food hall ever built in Iceland out of an old bus station.
This is Skál!
-You're from the U.S. -California, born and raised.
Why Iceland for you?
I think I've done 75 trips, and I realized at a certain point,
"Why do I keep coming here and going home?"
"Why don't I just stay longer?"
It's a place that inspired me from such a young age.
-Here you go. -Thank you so much.
I could just, you know, enjoy the people, the landscape, all these things.
Obviously, there are some incredibly harsh moments, but--
By harsh, you mean unbelievable cold in the winter.
People don't realize this,
but Iceland really doesn't get colder than New York. It's the wind.
If you have a hat, it'll take the hat off your head and blow it away.
But I think there's something to the fact that it's one of these places
where the more time and energy you give it, it gives back to you tenfold.
Guys. Are you ready for some food?
[seductive music playing]
[Phil] The menu at Skál is classic Icelandic
with a modernist touch.
Chef Mauney has been here since the place opened.
All right. Here we start with Icelandic scallops.
It comes with a horseradish cream, dill, and hazelnut oil.
[Phil] Look how beautiful.
And here we have the braised beets with Icelandic mascarpone, dill, walnuts,
and beach mustard leaves.
And remember to mix everything up.
Let's mix it up.
Every detail is, eh, necessary.
Oh my God.
I love the horseradish going on. Come on.
[Chris] That's a dish. Wow.
That's just pulled right from the landscape.
[Phil] Look at that. You know how to compose a fork, not just a photograph.
[Chris] It's always interesting, carrots and beets
and some of the stuff that they can grow here,
it's like survivor food, you know?
This is what they had, so they figured out how to make it well.
-[Mauney] All right, guys. Round two. -[Chris] Amazing.
-[Mauney] Pork belly sandwich. -[Chris] What?
[Mauney] And also the baked Arctic char. These two dishes are our signature dishes.
[Chris] Have you had Arctic char? It is my favorite fish in this country.
[Phil] It's got all the capers and shallots. Beautiful.
Mm!
This is delicious!
It's like a subtle salmon, right?
That's the dish.
[Phil] Let's do the pork patty. What do you call this?
The flæskesteg sandwich.
The what?
The flæskesteg sandwich.
It's Danish.
-Is it? -Yeah.
[Phil] Flæskesteg.
Oh!
Pork, beets, pickles, mayo.
As soon as it hit the table, I knew it was gonna be great.
Wow.
It's nice 'cause this is almost Iceland's take on a corned beef sandwich.
[Phil] Like a Reuben?
Mm! Mm!
Cracklin'!
Chris, you take these gorgeous photos.
Do you ever feel like, "I've captured it, you don't even have to go, it's here"?
[Chris] The magic isn't in the image.
It's going to be up here, right here.
My images can maybe inspire people to be like,
"That's an experience…"
[both] I wanna have.
It's really what I hope others take away.
You are an inspiration.
-Cheers, man. -New friends.
Wow. Yeah.
[relaxed music playing]
I'm bringing my favorite girls with me to this wonderful place called Le Kock,
which means the rooster.
Don't get any ideas, people.
Here, the chef is a man after my own belly.
How do you like Iceland?
I love it so much.
-[Markús] Hi, guys. -[Phil] It just got a little better here!
-I got some bagel sandwiches right here. -Oh, Markús!
-Great to meet you. -Likewise.
[Phil] What brought you to Iceland?
[Markús] I'm half Icelandic. I have dual citizenship.
I grew up in the U.S., went to University in Florida,
then moved up to New Hampshire and worked at some restaurants there.
And then you brought kind of American food to these people.
Yeah. Classic bagel shop and burger restaurant to Iceland.
This looks unbelievable. What do we have?
[Markús] So, we got here, it's a salmon on pretzel bagel
with a egg patty.
The Churchill bagel. It's a ham, egg, and cheese on a Parmesan bagel.
-Wow. -[Markús] And my favorite, the Costanza.
It's a salt beef with pickles, mustard, mayo on everything bagel.
I can't promote other sitcoms, but that looks excellent.
Markús, don't go anywhere. I wanna hold you accountable.
-[Markús laughs] -[Monica] Exactly.
[Markús] How do they hold up against New York bagels?
-Okay? -Oh my God.
What's New York?
[laughing]
[Monica] Amazing.
[Phil] The smoked salmon might be the best anywhere.
-All right, the next course for you. -Oh, Markús!
[Lily] Wow!
-[Monica] Thank you. -Pa-pah-pah-pah-pah!
[Markús] We've got a couple burgers.
We got a classic smash burger with truffle ketchup,
and then we've got a regular cheeseburger.
And what we use is Icelandic cabbage.
-[Lily] Try this. -Oh-ho-ho!
Ding-dong.
-And last but not least… -[Phil] Oh! Grilled cheese and soup!
-[Markús] Yeah. -There's love in the food.
You look like a tough guy, but you're a pussycat.
That's true.
-[Phil] I'm going in. -[Lily] Go in.
[Monica] Man.
The meat is so good, and it's medium rare. Perfect. This is a perfect cheeseburger.
That's a perfect soup.
[Phil] I'm going to do this.
I'm not a dipper.
You're not?
-[Lily] No. -You ever have a French dip sandwich?
Not for me. I don't like a soggy bread.
You know what else? She prefers a hamburger to a cheeseburger.
Yes. She's a weirdo.
[laughing]
[Phil] This is very fun food.
I don't do this for everybody, but because I like you…
-Be right back. -[Lily] Like?
[big band music playing]
[giggles]
-[Monica laughs] -Oh God.
[Monica] Oh my God.
-[Phil] You have a little room? -[Monica] Thank you. Yes.
-That little extra spot. -Oh my God.
[Phil] Oh-ho-ho-ho! Oy-o-oy!
[Monica] That is a perfect jelly doughnut.
When I grew up in the Bronx, there was this little bakery we loved,
and our folks would get us jelly doughnuts from there.
I swear this one took me right back to Johnson Avenue in Riverdale.
It was incredible.
-Crème brûlée. You ready? -[Monica] I'm ready.
-Be careful, honey. -[Lily] All right.
-[Monica] Oh my gosh. -Lily!
[laughs]
[Lily] Good?
You both are not getting any of this.
[all laughing]
[Monica laughs and gasps]
[playful music playing]
[video call chime]
[Phil] Hello, I'm looking for Tom Papa.
-[Tom] Hi! -[laughs]
Hi, Tom!
-How are you? -Are you at home or are you on the road?
I'm home for a second and I'm leaving again tomorrow.
I'm going to Winnipeg and Montreal.
-I love Montreal. -Yeah.
I have a list for you if you want.
When I took your list to Paris…
Holy cow.
Oh, that's nice. Now I feel useful. You know?
[laughs]
-Yeah. -[Phil] It's good to have a purpose.
But you travel everywhere. You must have your own lists.
When you're doing stand-up, you kind of blow in,
and you don't have time for nice dinners.
I can give you a list of good gas stations where you can get a PowerBar…
-[laughs] -…on the way to the theater.
-[Phil] Have you ever been to Iceland? -No.
It's one of the more spectacular places you'll ever see.
By the way, you cannot drive ten minutes without seeing something spectacular.
-Nature is nice, but how are the bakeries? -You gotta eat.
How are the bakeries?
Funny you should mention it. Hello, bakery.
[Tom] Oh, man!
So, this is from a place called Brauð og Co.
Brauð og Co.
This is I think the best cinnamon roll I ever had.
[Tom] Oh my God. That looks flaky.
[Phil] Oh, it's a beautiful thing.
[Tom] You should be telling me these things before you leave,
and then I get to come with you.
I don't need to hear you going off and eating these great things
when I'm eating garbage in my kitchen and hear… you're in paradise.
A little heads-up would be nice.
-I wanna show you an Icelandic hot dog. -Oh my God.
They're kind of famous.
-You like a hot dog? -I love a hot dog.
On my radio show, we have a contest for the summer,
who can eat the most hot dogs.
Oh! That's so funny because the crew
is having an Icelandic hot dog-eating contest.
So this is how it comes. There's crunchy and raw onions under here.
The hot dog is made of lamb and pork. It's high-quality meat.
There's their mustard and a rémoulade on it.
[Tom and Richard laughing]
Jared, did you say you were-- Where's Jared?
Fifteen-point-seven-five hot dogs you're at? You want to make it--
-[Richard] No! -[man] Don't give it to him.
-[Richard] Give it to me! -[indistinct bickering]
[Richard] I'm behind by point-two-five.
[Phil] You see? They're truly competing.
-[man] Finish! -[Richard] Don't finish it!
I've never seen rooting like this for-- You'd think it was the World Cup.
-You hear this? -I feel I'm watching my parents fight.
[laughing]
It's true.
All right. Because you're one of my favorite funny people,
I wanted you to do a joke for Max.
Okay. Because I don't have a lot of "joke" jokes in my head…
You can read it if you want.
All right. A woman walks into a pharmacy one day
and says to the pharmacist,
"I'd like a poison that'll kill my husband,
but make it look like he died of natural causes."
The pharmacist says, "Ma'am,
I'm gonna have to call the police and report you."
The woman removes something from her pocket,
and she slips it to the pharmacist.
The pharmacist opens it, looks at it, and discovers that it's a picture
of her husband making love to the pharmacist's wife.
The pharmacist folds it up, leans into the wife and says,
"Oh, you should have told me you had a prescription."
[giggling]
Tom Papa, everybody!
[Tom laughs]
-[Phil] I love you. -See you guys.
[upbeat music playing]
[Phil] It's time for our reunion
with most of the beautiful people I've met during my week here.
Plus these two I knew from before.
Good to see you, my Icelandic friends.
Good to see you.
We're going to…
Matur og Drykkur.
I have a little present. Icelandic sweater.
The best kind of souvenir from Iceland.
-So this is knitted by my mom. -Aw-- What?
But it's pre-owned, so it's one of mine.
Monica! Made by Gunnar's mother. It's his sweater.
He's giving it to me.
This is the greatest. Thank you so much.
To my beautiful new friends in Iceland! How great is this?
-Cheers. -Skál!
[all] Skál!
[Phil] Thank you for welcoming us. Look what's happening, people.
-Okay! Nice! -Wow!
[Helga] So, this is our tasting platter.
[Phil] Here, Chef Helga, I'm gonna try this one on my own.
Sigurðardóttir. I hope that's close.
[Helga] We wanted to show what Iceland is all about.
The agriculture.
So we have some fish, we have some lamb.
We have some vegetables.
-Enjoy, you guys. -[Phil] Thanksgiving.
[man] Yeah!
Oh, Chef Helga made such a meal.
Roasted lamb and this beautiful jus.
Enjoy.
-Thank you! -[Gunnar] Thank you!
-I think we have the toothiest fish. -[Phil] Gotta bite it before it bites you.
[all laughing]
[Phil] Cheeks. This is so good.
[Shruthi] These kind of old-school recipes
I think Icelanders have traditionally associated
with poverty.
So pride in Icelandic food, that is very new.
Sort of like turning people to see that we already have something here,
we can build on that.
[Phil] Right. And the nice sweaters.
[laughing]
[Phil] I'm so happy I finally made it to this magical island.
One new experience after another since I stepped off the plane.
Getting to know these people who have such spirit and humor
in this misunderstood land hit with North Atlantic winds,
sitting on top of active volcanoes.
-[Monica] Phil! -[Gunnar] It's perfect!
[laughing]
They seem to live life with such warmth and cheerfulness,
and I think I may know why.
The answer can be found in that complicated language of theirs.
[speaks Icelandic]
Means, "It's all going to work out."
That's a good philosophy of life.
[speaks Icelandic]
If you can say it.
I can't tell you how much I've loved being in your beautiful country
and meeting all of you.
-How do you say love in Icelandic? -You say ást.
[all] Ást!
So much ást in the room!
[laughing]
[inspirational music playing]
[Phil] I know this might seem far away to you,
but some trips are worth the effort.
Because once you get there, you're there.
And once you're there, you feel like this.
["Shake and Hip Drop" by The Sound Stylistics playing]
[Phil] I just may have to come back in the winter.
[music fades]
[upbeat closing music playing]
♪ Come sit at his table ♪
♪ If you're happy, hungry Willing and able ♪
♪ To see how breaking bread ♪
♪ Can turn a stranger Right into a friend ♪
♪ He will drive to you He will fly to you ♪
♪ He will sing for you And he'll dance for you ♪
♪ He will laugh with you And he'll cry for you ♪
♪ There's just one thing He asks in return ♪
♪ Somebody feed, somebody feed Phil ♪
♪ Can somebody ♪
♪ Somebody feed Phil! ♪
♪ Oh, please, somebody ♪
♪ Somebody feed Phil! ♪
♪ Somebody feed him now! ♪