The Reykjavik EDITION

Where Volcanic Craft Meets Urban Scale

Arriving at Austurbakki 2, the building announces itself before you reach the entrance. The ebony facade, clad in charred timber, reads less as a design flourish and more as a geological statement: the black draws directly from Iceland's volcanic terrain, the same lava fields that define the island's character from Reykjanes to the Snæfellsnes peninsula. The building sits at the edge of Old Harbor, where the waterfront opens toward Mount Esja and, on clear days, the distant silhouette of Snæfellsjökull glacier. The physical placement is deliberate: the hotel occupies one of Reykjavík's most historically loaded addresses while operating as a fully contemporary structure.

Reykjavík had long had boutique hotels with local character and adventure lodges built around landscape access, but the format of a large-scale, design-led urban hotel with serious food and beverage programming arrived late. The Reykjavik EDITION, a 253-room property positioned at the city's 5-star tier, represents the first attempt to bring that format to the Icelandic capital at this scale. Within the EDITION brand, which Ian Schrager developed in partnership with Marriott International, each property is expected to read as a response to its specific location rather than a template applied to it. In Reykjavík, the execution of that principle falls to design firm Roman and Williams, whose mid-century modernist sensibility gets filtered through Nordic materials: pale ashwood, gray oak, blond timber, and local art throughout the guest rooms.

The Interior Argument

The lobby makes its case through restraint rather than volume. A totem of stacked black lava rocks anchors the central space, a reference to the cairns found throughout the Icelandic countryside. Around it, a basalt bench lined with black sheepskins provides seating that functions as both furniture and cultural context. The Northern Lights-inspired digital artwork installed within the building extends that dialogue with landscape into a medium more typically associated with urban contemporary hotels. The choices throughout sit in a careful register: specific enough to feel grounded in place, restrained enough to avoid folklore pastiche.

Guest rooms carry the same editorial logic. Floor-to-ceiling windows frame views across the harbor, the Harpa Concert and Conference Center, and Mount Esja, making the Icelandic landscape a permanent presence inside the room rather than an amenity available only from outdoor spaces. The palette of white, pale ashwood, and gray oak reads calm against that backdrop. Textiles by Reykjavík-based company Ístex, including faux fur rugs and colorful throws, add warmth without ornament, and photographs by Icelandic photographers Páll Stefánsson and Ragnar Axelsson line the walls. The sourcing of those details matters to the overall argument: the rooms feel like a considered interpretation of Iceland, not a generic Nordic hotel room with lava motifs applied to the minibar.

For context, Iceland's broader hotel offer splits between landscape-integrated properties, such as ION Adventure Hotel, Nesjavellir and Eleven Deplar Farm, where the wilderness is the product, and smaller urban or coastal properties like Hótel Búðir and Hotel Ranga that operate on atmosphere and setting. The EDITION sits in a different category entirely: a full-service city hotel with 253 rooms, a spa, multiple food and beverage outlets, a nightclub, and meeting facilities, positioned to serve both leisure travelers and a local Reykjavík audience. That dual appeal is a deliberate part of the brand's operating model, and at this property it shapes the programming across food, bar, and social spaces.

Tides and the Current State of Icelandic Cooking

Icelandic cuisine at the upper end has undergone a significant shift over the past decade, with a wave of chefs returning from training abroad to apply international technique to local ingredients: Arctic char, skyr, lamb, wild herbs, and North Atlantic seafood. Tides, the hotel's signature restaurant, sits within that current. The kitchen operates under Gunnar Karl Gíslason, who built his reputation at Dill, long regarded as the anchor of contemporary Icelandic fine dining. The menu at Tides runs a five-course format at dinner, with dishes that use ingredients such as scallops with redcurrant, coffee, and lovage, or grilled Dover sole with Hokkaido pumpkin, preserved lemon, and amaranth. The combinations reflect a kitchen working with both hyperlocal sourcing and a broader international pantry, which places the restaurant within the current generation of Nordic cooking rather than a narrowly purist interpretation of it. For guests with less time or appetite for a full seated dinner, Tides Café operates as a daytime counter serving sourdough sandwiches, baked goods, and coffee from Reykjavík Roasters.

Bars, Social Infrastructure, and the Seventh Floor

The EDITION model typically invests in nightlife infrastructure as a differentiator, and in Reykjavík that shows in the range of drinking and socializing spaces. The Lobby Bar, centered on a fireplace with deep seating, serves Icelandic craft beers and cocktails built around local ingredients. On weekends, the bar Tölt draws a mixed crowd before guests and locals move through to Sunset, the hotel's nightclub, which has developed a presence in the city's social circuit. The Roof, on the seventh floor, adds an alfresco dimension: a terrace with panoramic views across the harbor and city that changes character entirely from summer to the short winter days. The spa lounge operates a parallel track, serving smoothies during treatment hours and cocktails in the evening, including the option to drink in the hydrotherapy plunge pool, a reference to the geothermal bathing culture that runs through Icelandic life at every social level.

The Spa as Cultural Reference

Iceland's geothermal bathing tradition operates at a scale and social depth that most hotel spa programs never replicate. The EDITION Spa's approach acknowledges that context: three treatment rooms, a steam room, sauna, hammam, and hydrotherapy plunge pool combine into a facility designed with the social dimension of that tradition in mind. The spa lounge positioning, with drinks available throughout, is a deliberate nod to the communal, time-extended way Icelanders use hot water facilities. The signature 60-minute massage uses Le Labo Black Tea oils, a detail that places the spa within the brand's established fragrance partnership, while the 120-minute Aegir treatment adds a facial, back massage, sea salt hammam scrub, and a cocktail. Arriving at least 30 minutes before any treatment allows full use of the thermal facilities.

Location and Getting There

The hotel's address at the edge of Old Harbor puts it within walking distance of Laugavegur, the main commercial and dining artery of central Reykjavík, and directly adjacent to the Harpa Concert and Conference Center. Keflavík International Airport sits roughly 45 minutes by car, a transfer that covers the lava field approach to the city along Route 41. At a starting rate around $435 per night for 253 rooms, the property prices in line with 5-star urban hotels in comparable Northern European capitals rather than against the smaller Icelandic properties that dominate the country's accommodation market. Hotels such as Black Pearl in Reykjavík operate at a different scale and positioning. For guests extending beyond the capital, properties including Silica Hotel near the Blue Lagoon, UMI Hotel in Vík, Hótel Reykjahlíð, Vogafjós Farm Resort, Skálakot Hotel, and Hótel Klaustur Iceland extend the routing around the Ring Road. The Northern Lights are visible from the city during the winter months, making late autumn through early spring the season when the hotel's location carries additional value for that specific draw. See our full Reykjavík restaurants guide for dining context beyond the hotel.

Within the broader EDITION portfolio, the Reykjavík property competes in a different tier than EDITION hotels in markets with deeper luxury hotel competition. Properties like Aman New York, Cheval Blanc Paris, Hotel Plaza Athénée, Bvlgari Hotel Tokyo, or Badrutt's Palace Hotel operate in markets with dozens of comparable luxury options. In Reykjavík, the EDITION occupies a near-singular position at the 5-star, full-service end of an otherwise mid-scale urban hotel market, a competitive gap the property fills almost by default.

Frequently Asked Questions

What should I expect atmosphere-wise at The Reykjavik EDITION?

The public spaces run a deliberately cosmopolitan register with specific Icelandic references: lava rock installations, digital Northern Lights artwork, sheepskin textiles, and photography by Icelandic artists. The Lobby Bar draws both hotel guests and local residents, particularly in the evenings, and the weekend nightclub operates as one of the more active venues in the city's social calendar. The overall tone sits between a design hotel and a genuine social hub for Reykjavík.

What room category do guests prefer at The Reykjavik EDITION?

Rooms with harbor-facing floor-to-ceiling windows are the primary draw. Views across Old Harbor toward Mount Esja are available from multiple room categories, and the Harpa Concert Hall also features in outlooks from several positions within the building. Given the Northern Lights are visible from the city in winter, a room with an unobstructed northern or western exposure maximizes that possibility. With 253 rooms and rates from approximately $435, the property has availability across categories that a smaller luxury hotel cannot offer.

What's the main draw of The Reykjavik EDITION?

The combination of urban scale and genuine location-specific design marks the hotel's position in the Reykjavík market, where nothing at this format and size previously existed at the 5-star tier. Tides restaurant, operating under Gunnar Karl Gíslason of Dill, gives the food program a credible anchor. The spa's thermal facilities, the rooftop terrace with panoramic harbor views, and the nightlife programming collectively make the property function as a destination within the city rather than purely as accommodation.