Courtesy of Ras Plant Based
When thinking of New York City’s most iconic foods, most minds instantly go to a chopped cheese or bacon, egg, and cheese from the bodega on the corner, a fluffy bagel with lox, or meaty pastrami on rye. But the city is many things, and one of them is a mecca for vegetarian dining. There have been pockets of vegetable-forward restaurants since the ‘70s, with places like the much-loved, but long-gone, Angelica Kitchen and Pure Food and Wine. Those forerunners birthed a movement because today, even classically carnivorous steakhouses and burger joints cater to diners who avoid meat, but there are also enough places dedicated entirely to vegetarians.
If you’re looking for somewhere where you’ll have no shortage of choices, you’re in luck because the city is awash with exclusively vegetarian restaurants. They range from those that specialize in ultra spicy Szechuan dry pots to seven-course tasting menus. Here are some of our top recommendations where everyone from a diehard carnivore to vegan (find our vegan-only roundup here) can enjoy.
Read our complete New York City guide here, which includes:
A French toast brunch special at Ras Plant Based.
Courtesy of Ras Plant Based
Ras serves modern, meat-free Ethiopian food.
Courtesy of Ras Plant Based
The mac-and-cheese side at Ras comes in a wee skillet.
Courtesy of Ras Plant Based
Head to Prospect Heights to sample some of the city’s best Ethiopian, which just so happens to be vegan. Husband and wife team Romeo and Milka Regalli opened their spot in 2020 to bring their family’s recipes to the neighborhood. They’ve taken a modern and meat-free approach to the cuisine. Expect dishes like injera nachos topped with a housemade berbere cheese sauce, black beans, guacamole, and pico de gallo as well as tibs, normally made with stir-fried meat, but here made from either mushrooms or seitan. Food here is best shared, but if you’re not with a group, get a sampling of it all with one of their platters that offer a handful of stews and stir-fries accompanied by rice or injera, the spongy flatbread made from teff flour that’s naturally gluten-free.
If you’re a lover of veggie burgers—we’re not talking the Impossible kind either, but the kind made with real vegetables—this is the place for you. In 2015, Brooks Hedley, a former fine-dining pastry chef, traded it all in to open his much-loved burger shack that was originally housed in a tiny hole in the wall on 9th street. It was an instant hit, drawing lines for its platonic-ideal burgers, burnt broccoli salad, and some of the city’s best gelato. It has since moved around the corner to a much bigger restaurant with ample seating on Avenue A, and the menu has expanded to present all sorts of farmer’s market vegetables in satisfying, innovative ways. No meal at Superiority Burger would be complete without its namesake burger—a house-made patty made from a vegetable, quinoa, and chickpea blend that comes topped with shredded lettuce, ketchup, pickles and cheese (vegan or not). Don’t overlook anything made with yuba, either, or whatever quirky sides Brooks and the team are making on the day, as well as the dessert. The cakes are legendary, and almost always vegan, as is most of the menu.
Canadian chef Amanda Cohen has been operating her Lower East Side restaurant since 2008. It originally occupied a tiny 18-seat sliver of a space in the East Village, but she’s since moved to Allen Street and has been thriving there for a decade. The restaurant is the only Michelin-starred vegetarian restaurant in the city. Her five-course tasting menu is vegetarian by default, can easily be made vegan by request, and changes quarterly with the seasons. On each of the menus, one can expect to find elevated, yet playful dishes like tomato twinkies filled with smoked feta cheese and corn crepes with seaweed caviar and eggplant oysters. You may finish with mousse made from miso-glazed eggplant served in a chocolate shell—yes, you’ll even find vegetables in dessert, and it works. It’s serious food that doesn’t take itself too seriously.
While older sibling Eleven Madison Park recently brought meat back aboard its menu, sexy cocktail bar Clemente remains totally plant-based.
Evan Sung/Clemente
Most know the repeatedly Michelin-starred Eleven Madison Park, which went plant-based in 2021, but has recently brought meat back onto its menu. Clemente Bar is its newer, more casual sibling. The bar-cum-restaurant sits on the second floor of the Park Avenue adjacent space. Two kinds of reservations are available, one in the lounge for drinks and cocktails and the other in the studio, which is a nine-seat counter with a tasting menu that comes with cocktail pairings. The food and drink at both are pitch-perfect and one can expect to find entirely plant-based dishes with a Japanese twist, like avocado inari pockets, lemon pepper fried maitake mushrooms and agadashi tofu hot dogs served in a truffle potato roll. Cocktails, both alcoholic and not, are some of the city’s best and the room one of its most stylish. Its name comes from the artist Francesco Clemente, whose work dots the walls of the dimly lit interior.
Since its opening in 2017, abcV has become an institution among vegetarians and omnivores alike. It comes from legendary restaurateur Jean-Georges Vongerighten, who gives his iconic fine dining a vegetarian slant on the main floor of the otherwise unaffiliated ABC Carpet & Home (they did, however, provide the decor and furnishings for the space). It’s also one of the rare New York City restaurants that is open for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and weekend brunch. Don’t expect to find mock meats here—the menu is centered around seasonal vegetables and can include dishes like cornmeal-crusted oyster mushrooms, wood-roasted Sicilian eggplant, and its famous dosa, which is topped with avocado, sprouts, and yogurt. Don’t forget to order dessert—the chocolate cherry cake is decadent, indulgent, and entirely vegan.
A squash-laden dish at Hags, a sliver of a restaurant in the East Village.
Morgan Levy/HAGS
This tiny slip of a restaurant in the East Village isn’t entirely vegetarian, but it does offer one of the most thoughtful vegan menus in town. Business and life partners Telly Justice and Camille Lindsley opened the place in 2022, with the latter taking care of the wine and front of house operations while the former runs the kitchen. They have two options to their ever-changing 7-course tasting menu: vegan and omnivore. Expect to see dishes like Carolina gold rice brioche topped with tomato butter, squash with the creamiest of grits, and the best iteration of typically-polarizing tempeh we’ve ever tasted. Dessert also shines, with two courses devoted to it, as well as one of the most considered non-alcoholic pairing accompaniments. It’s intimate, deeply personal, and with pronouns pins on the table that you can choose to wear or not, one of the most joyfully inclusive dining rooms in—dare we say the world? It’s truly for everyone, vegans, vegetarians, and even the most carnivorous among us.
If you happen to be lucky enough to be close to one of the four Spicy Moons in Manhattan, you’ll be able to sample some of the city’s best Szechuan cuisine that happens to also be entirely vegan. Founded in 2019, by Taiwan born June Kwan, she brings big, bold, and often chili spiked flavors to all of her locations. You’ll find crowd-favorite items like dan dan noodles, but made with Impossible crumbles instead of the typical pork and General Tso’s chicken, but also with mushrooms. As with most Chinese cuisine, it’s best shared, so go with a group if you can. They also host a happy hour, during which you can grab discounted plates of the signature cumin flavored, crinkle-cut french fries and spicy cucumbers, as well as $5 beers and $7 glasses of wine.
Candle has a diverse menu that takes cues from Mexico, the Middle East, and more.
Courtesy of Candle
There were two original Candles, one Candle 79 and the other Candle Cafe, on the Upper East Side that sadly closed in 2020. Both were early adopters of vegan cuisine and were institutions for the city’s plant-based diners. In 2023, the concept was resurrected as Candle, now standing roughly 50 blocks south in Kips Bay. The diverse menu shows a range of influences from Mexico to the Middle East. It’s hearty, satisfying, and a little indulgent. . They have one of the best salads in the city with their grilled kale, which is tossed with string beans, lentils, kabocha squash, avocado, red onion, sunflower seeds, and spelt berries, and their za’atar roasted cauliflower might be one of the better iterations of the vegetable we’ve seen. Be sure to stop by on the weekend for brunch, where you can find vegan french toast, huevos rancheros, and breakfast burritos.
As soon as you step foot inside Hangawi, you know this isn’t your average restaurant. It bills itself as a vegetarian shrine in another space and time, which we’d certainly say is accurate. You’ll be asked to remove your shoes and keep your voice down as you enter the Koreatown joint. The food here is decidedly Korean, but devoid of the more expected barbecue, fried chicken, and bulgogi. Here you’ll find dishes that exude its zen philosophy, like perilla leaf tofu patties, crispy mushrooms in sweet and sour sauce, and organic noodles made from buckwheat. The food is singular, as is the vibe. If you’re looking for a refreshing take on Korean food free from animal products, Hagwai is well worth a try. You’ll be pleasantly surprised by everything that arrives at your table.
Originally Appeared on Condé Nast Traveler
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