Randulffs Seahouse

The Restaurant Randulffs-Seahouse offer local delicaccies like shark-meet, dried fish, both produched in Eskifjörður and widely acknowledged as being among the very best in Iceland, pickled herring, reindeer and with fresh fish from the fjord. The Restaurant is open every day all summer for lunch and dinner. For winter we are open for pre-booked groups and special events. Local musicians can also be provided on request.

Randulf´s Seahouse is a beautifully preserved shore-building towards the eastern end of Eskifjörður, which today preserves both many artefacts and a lingering atmosphere from the days when the establishment of a herring fishery led to the first real growth of the fiord towns of East Iceland in the late 19th and early 20th century.

It was was built in by Norwegian Peter Randulff in 1890 it provided a station for landing and processing herring caught within the fiord through to 1930 when there were no longer sufficient herring coming into the fiord to sustain the fishery. When herring finally returned to the seas off East Iceland in the late 1950s the fishery involved large ships fishing further off-shore and landing their catches at ports like Siglufjörður, Húsavík and Vopnafjörður in the north, and for the next 75 years this sturdy old sea-house remained closed.

In 1980 East Iceland Museum Society (Sjóminjasafn Austarlands) became a part-owner of Randulf´s sea-house leading to the restoration of both the exterior of the sea-house and the adjoining jetty. In 2003 the society became the sole owner of the house and in 2008 was re-opened in co-operation with the nearby Mjóeyri guesthouse and tourism centre. It has since been available both as an extension of the excellent Eskifjörður maritime museum and as a place where groups are able to sample traditional Icelandic fare in a setting that has changed little in the past one hundred years. It also provides the base from which Mjóeyri guesthouse rents out small boats with outboard motors for recreational fishing within the fiord where cod and haddock are still plentiful.

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