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Photograph: Tendril

The best vegan restaurants in London

Vegan food isn't just for veganuary - find perfect pizzas and standout small plates at these plant-based restaurants

Edited by
Leonie Cooper
Written by
Angela Hui
&
Sarah Cohen
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It's official: London is experiencing a fast-mushrooming plant-based restaurant boom. Across the city, creative chefs are showing off their prowess with plants, creating pitch-perfect imitations of meaty comfort food classics, or dreaming up new vegetable-based delights. Whether you're after a lavish night of culinary theatre, a delicate Middle Eastern spread, or a carb-coma-inducing full English breakfast, you'll find it in our list of London's best vegan restaurants. Read on and plan your next plant-free feast.

RECOMMENDED: London’s best restaurants for vegetarian food.

The best restaurants in London for vegans

  • Restaurants
  • Vegetarian
  • Peckham

Part of the green wave of vegan restaurants that's currently breaking in Peckham, Naïfs is a family-run small plates spot tucked away on a quiet residential street. Chef Tom Heale used to be a sous chef at much-missed, much-garlanded veggie restaurant Vanilla Black. Now, he runs Naïfs with his brother Finn alongside him in the kitchen, serving up Middle Eastern-inspired small plates in a low-key but romantic setting.

  • Bars and pubs
  • Tulse Hill

As well as spots at Brixton's Ritzy Cinema and in Peckham and Clapham, En Root have taken over the kitchen at this friendly Tulse Hill boozer. Their Indian-inspired comfort food includes the likes of crunchy plantain chaat, tandoori oyster mushroom wings, jerk dosas and pakora burgers. Our favourite? The Tulse Hill thali, with golden rice, dhal, saag aloo, jerk plantain mushroom mix, rainbow salad, pickled cabbage & plantain. Don't miss the piña colada pani puri for pud.

 

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  • Bars and pubs
  • Tottenham

Safiya Robinson is the chef in residence at the ace new Moko hi-fi bar in Tottenham. Cooking up serious modern vegan soul food under the Sisterwoman banner, during the day there are small plates and lunch specials of grilled okra, spelt cornbread and the mighty rudeboy sandwich of cornmeal fried oyster mushrooms, spicy ackee remoulade and escovitch pickle. In the evenings you'll get cheesy grits with jerk grilled oyster mushrooms and hibiscus scotch bonnet chilli oil or stewed black eyed peas with tempeh bacon and kale chips. 

  • Restaurants
  • Vegetarian
  • Mayfair

Sesame-speckled purple sweet potatoes, mouth-puckering ferments and lip-smacking tiramisu are all on the menu at Chef Rishim Sachdeva’s brilliant (mostly) vegan small-plates restaurant Tendril. This dimly-lit, gently romantic spot makes meat-free dining both relaxing and unquestionably delicious: you won't believe you're just minutes away from the madness of Oxford Circus

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  • Restaurants
  • Chinese
  • Angel
  • price 2 of 4

Mention this place to in-the-know vegans and their eyes will glaze over in blissed-out memory of the gorgeous dishes this Islington restaurant serves up. Its menu is packed with classic Chinese dishes crafted from mock meat, tofu, and beancurd galore, but somehow that description doesn't do justice to the exhilarating textures and flavours this joint serves up. Don't miss the twice-cooked 'fish', with its crisp batter coating and meltingly soft interior. 

  • Restaurants
  • Vegan
  • Soho

After beginnings at summer music festivals, pub pop-ups and Hackney supper clubs, Club Mexicana is in Soho, permanently packed with happily seitan-stuffed burrito fiends. The al pastor taco is still a must-order. But there are other highlights, like the ingenious tofish taco and jackfruit 'ribs'. Another outpost can also be found in Spitalfields.

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  • Restaurants
  • Middle Eastern
  • London Fields
  • price 1 of 4

Fried potatoes, fresh houmous, pickled mango sauce - just a taste of what’s in store at this street-stall gone permanent. After a long wait, Pockets has opened its first restaurant due to the popularity gained from their infamously good falafel-stuffed pitta breads. These entirely plant-based pittas are known to attract extensively long queues - and who could resist these perfect parcels of massive flavour? With a simple but perfected menu, Pockets do falafel better than anyone in London. 

Eva Walsh
Contributor
Gauthier Soho
  • Restaurants
  • French
  • Soho

Alexis Gauthier is a vegan chef who practises what he preaches. His classy Soho townhouse restaurant satisfies plant-crazy evangelists as well as fans of Gallic gourmandising. The vegan line-up might run from golden glazed swede with citrus marmalade and miso-infused dressing to tempeh and corn with kaffir lime, popcorn and bean shoot salad. 

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  • Restaurants
  • Vegetarian
  • Covent Garden
  • price 2 of 4

Central London institution Mildred’s dates back to 1988, an era when vegetarians were shunned, reviled and closeted, which is perhaps why it wears the 100% plant-based nature of its offering so lightly: it’s just a classy, casual-ish restaurant with a diverse, international menu that happens to include no meat. You can expect the likes of Sri Lankan sweet potato curry, tempeh mushroom yaki udon, grilled artichoke caesar and a menu staple; sausage and mash. Their pan-global menu is always fun. Branches also in Camden, Soho, King’s Cross and Dalston.

Purezza
  • Restaurants
  • Vegan
  • Camden Town

The name means ‘purity’ and that’s what you get at this London outpost of the UK’s first vegan pizzeria. The setting is buzzy, modern and relaxed, while the terrific plant-based toppings involve everything from wood-smoked tofu and shaved seitan to rice-based mozzarella and beetroot carpaccio. You can also indulge in some good old-fashioned gluttony by ordering a wicked Oreo pizza for pud.

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  • Restaurants
  • Vegan
  • Hackney
  • price 1 of 4

It’s never easy to find proper Chinese food in vegan form, but this typically cheery hipster hangout in Hackney really nails it with a short menu of terrific Sichuan dishes. Current hits range from smacked cucumber with black vinegar, sesame oil and crushed garlic to dan dan noodles topped with vegan mince made to a secret recipe. Prices are pay-packet-friendly.

CookDaily
Andy Parsons

12. CookDaily

Vegan chef King Senathit has been bouncing around Hackney for a few years now – since 2015 – serving up steaming bowls of curries and noodles; all dripping with crunchy fresh veg. His latest outlet is in Spitalfields. Drop by for a massive bowl of high grade; a sweet and sour BBQ dish with hemp seeds and oil that comes with vegan chicken or tofu. Fast food with soul. 

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Black Cat
  • Restaurants
  • Vegan
  • Clapton
  • price 1 of 4

Run as a not-for-profit workers’ cooperative, this ethical vegan-only café and bookshop in Clapton is a top spot for budget plant-based food. The menu always features a beef-style seitan and soya-mince burger, a barbecue tofu sandwich, pancakes, curries and meatless lasagne, plus a host of seasonal salad plates involving kale, beetroot, quinoa, noodles and other hip favourites

Itadaki Zen
  • Restaurants
  • Japanese
  • King’s Cross

Japanese, vegan and organic? What’s not to love – and, rest assured, we do love this cool little miracle near King’s Cross station. Only the slurping of udon noodles disturbs the Zen-like tranquillity, as punters dip into a virtuously healthy menu that makes the most of a few key ingredients (expects lots of tofu and seaweed). Laid-back staff go with the flow.

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  • Restaurants
  • Contemporary Global
  • St James’s
  • price 3 of 4

An omnivore joint but one with a stand-out vegan tasting menu, Ramael Scully’s St James’s market spot is home to some serious culinary wizardry. The ex-Ottolenghi chef decided to add a vegan tasting menu to his restautant in autumn of 2023 and it's an ambitious eight course arrangement clocking in at £95 per head. But your money goes a long way: the portions are on the healthy side of generous and dishes include things like crunchy arepa, made with zesty 12 day fermented corn bread and zucchini slathered with a smooth green curry sauce and turmeric coconut yogurt on top of a bed of crispy spiced coconut. 

https://media.timeout.com/images/106050165/image.jpg
Chiara Wilkinson
Features Editor, UK
Loving Hut
  • Restaurants
  • Vegan
  • Holloway Road

The London outpost of a small chain that focuses on vegan dishes inspired by pan-Asian cuisine, Loving Hut in Archway professes to use organic vegetables and non-GMO products, with ingredients sourced locally where possible. You'll probably recognise much of the menu – including barbecue vegetable ribs and crispy aromatic ‘duck’, as well as a vegan cheesecake.

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What The Pitta!
  • Restaurants
  • Vegan
  • Camden Town
  • price 1 of 4

Head down to the Camden branch of this mini-chain, where cooks marinade soya chunks in secret spices to create the restaurant’s signature kebab ‘meat’. You’ll find them in the headline act: a vegan doner where the ‘meat’ comes packed in flatbread, with salad, soya yoghurt, tzatziki and houmous. Portions are huge, but you can take any leftovers home. Check out the syrupy and sweet baklava, too.

  • Restaurants
  • Vegan
  • Canary Wharf
  • price 2 of 4

Mallow – an offshoot of longstanding London veggie spot Mildred's – has a menu that spans cuisine from all over: Middle Eastern, Italian, Indian, Malaysian – or just burger and chips. The small plates are by far what Mallow does best; shiitake miso croquettes, pea and mint tortelloni, and tasty sourdough. There's another branch in Borough Market

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Temple of Seitan
  • Restaurants
  • Vegan
  • Hackney
  • price 1 of 4

London’s first vegan chicken shop (yes, you heard right) was born out of Hackney’s Temple of Seitan street stall. It’s all about ‘meaty’ wheat gluten (aka seitan) here, whether you order peppery popcorn-style nuggets, battered strips or a burger. Add-ons such as zingy red slaw or vegan mac ’n’ cheese with smoky facon cubes are bang-on too. If you want indoor seating and a tad more comfort, try Temple’s sibling in Camden.

Unity Diner
  • Restaurants
  • British
  • Hoxton
  • price 2 of 4

‘The future is vegan’, says a neon sign on the wall of Unity Diner – a hugely popular Hoxton eaterie that donates all its profits to an animal rights charity. Fake burgers, dogs and wings make inventive use of seitan, and the menu also touts poké bowls and creative salads involving in-vogue ingredients such as tempeh. Lovely staff add to the feelgood vibe.

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  • Restaurants
  • Vegan
  • Hackney

The name is an acronym for We Are Vegan Everything, and this trendy café fproves its point with a menu of brekky bowls, Bali bowls, mac ’n’ cheeze, mock-salmon bagels, innovative salads and mighty looking freakshakes. With its chic but cosy tropical-meets-Scandi decor, this is a strong shout for a vegan lunch in Hackney, especially if you stick to the savouries.

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