NYC's 36 best vegetarian and vegan restaurants

One of NYC’s best new restaurants of 2021, Cadence’s Executive Chef Shenarri Freeman’s southern fried lasagna, layered with pasta, pine nut ricotta, spinach and a red wine Beyond Meat Bolognese, was also one of the most excellent new items to hit menus that year. Her hearts of palm cakes with chickpeas and silken smoked grits are also hits, and the previously petite operation has since relocated to a larger space near its East Village original. 

Fueled by the ambition to make people crave vegetables, Amanda Cohen revived her beloved East Village eatery on the Lower East Side with a ramped-up tasting menu and a space three times the size of the 18-seat original. Emblazoned with a mural of greenery by graffiti artist Noah McDonough, the sprawling dining room is focused on the open kitchen at its heart—complete with a chef’s counter—and a full bar along one wall. 

A vegetarian Indian food haven in Floral Park, Queens specializes in fast casual bites, savory snacks and colorful desserts. Usha is one of the best vegetarian destinations for generous portions, combo platters that allow you to try a little bit of everything and a menu that strongly demonstrates you don't need meat to have one of the city's most satisfying meals. It's just down the road from a Patel Brothers location, one of our favorite supermarket for hard-to-find Indian pantry staples.

Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s first meat-free venture populates a spacious room with a Goop-y stretch of white furniture, pops of color courtesy of artisanal ceramic plateware, millennial-pink wall panels and boho banquettes. Each menu arrives with a chart that details the health benefits of various vegetables.

You’ll get a spread of traditional bites, including red lentils in berbere sauce, mashed split peas simmered with tomato, and a chickpea stuffing with kale at this vegetarian Ethiopian charmer. Cool the heat of the spicier flavors with a strip of injera.

This East Village vegan Szechuan restaurant serves items like dan dan noodles with Impossible meat, mapo tofu and a trio of eggplant options. 

Even with recent renovations giving the space a refresh, Buddha Bodai remains one of New York's most essential vegetarian and vegan-friendly dining destinations, doling out plant-based versions of Peking duck, turnip cake and vegetarian sesame chicken for more than 45 years.

The namesake items are expertly-prepared at this vegan stand by beloved vendor Thiru “Dosa Man” Kumar. NY Dosa's special Pondicherry version, with spices, potatoes and a medley of vegetables, is also one of the best street foods in the world. 

Francesca "Sol" Chaney’s eponymous casual vegan spot is food-security and community focused with a program in place to provide free meal kits for people in communities most affected by the pandemic. Sol Sips’ menu includes terrific takes on chopped cheese and BECs, plus BBQ jackfruit quesadillas and crispy fried okra. 

The seemingly endless options at Veggie Castle's buffet have attracted both repeat customers and more than 36,000 Instagram followers. The customization is unbeatable and, fortunately for visitors with hungry eyes, also especially photogenic, as evidenced by hundreds of tagged photos of vegan salt-baked fish, jerk chicken, wings and other alternative proteins.

First opened in 2016, Ladybird serves vegan drunk food items like tempura fried broccoli, green pea fritters and grilled cheese with tomato soup. It's an excellent option for when you want to get a bit tipsy.

Toulouse-born model Christophe Caron felt that the simple delicacy of crepes from his native France has been lost in translation when reinterpreted overseas. Here, he folds paper-thin sheets of white flour and Brittany-sourced buckwheat on an imported Krampouz plate, yielding airy crepes as well as their savory cousins, the galette. Vegan fillings like housemade salted caramel and gingerbread nestle in the sweet roll-ups, while the latter comes in varieties like the Mr. Petrossian, with vegan smoked salmon and vegan shrimp enveloped in avocado puree.

Greedi Vegan's menu is influenced by soul food. We love its Greedi Soul Bowl (with a choice of the grain of the day or mac & cheese made vegan, topped with quinoa breaded "fried chicken," with choice of kale or spinach and sweet potatoes); grits 'n vegan beef gravy; and vegan crab cake sliders.

This lovely Korean vegetarian restaurant is comfortable and intimite. Carefully crafted dishes include leek pancakes, maitake mushroom fritters, a variety of dumplings, bibimbap and seasonal specials. 

This small, colorful vegan Mexican spot situated where Two Bridges, the Lower East Side, the West Village, Williamsburg and Chinatown meet is the mini-chain's original location. It now has four, and the food backs the buzz, with inventive plant-based spins on Mexican favorites. There's a "chorizo" burrito made with cauliflower rice, rainbow chard bowl with vegan cotija and crispy chayote fish taco made with a seafood-substitute. 

Oasis is our no-fail, no-frills, trusty best friend for falafel platters and pita sandwiches. Beyond its good falafel, we appreciate the bounty of pickled veggies that would be worth ordering in its own right.

The name is a little dad-jokey, but Avant Garden's 28-seat space—with a petrified-wood counter and raw tree branches above an open kitchen—is filled with serious plant-based plates. Pair a quartet of toasts topped with items like crimini mushrooms with the house made spaghetti and sip beer, wine and cider. 

The Champs Diner team is known for its vegan comfort foods and Screamer's Pizzeria doesn't disappoint. Offering vegan pies like a Sausage & Mushroom (tomato sauce, housemade seitan sausage, cremini mushrooms and vegan cheese), the Old School (broccolini, almond ricotta and caramelized onions) and a make-your-own option, Screamer's makes clear that pizza doesn't need any animal products to feel decadent. 

Bushwick's favorite diner is all vegan with dishes like the "hippie hash," a po boy salad (sans seafood) and a roster of tasty milkshakes made with dairy alternatives. 

Many of the filling, all-veg lunch specials at this easy pan-Asian spot in Astoria hover around $11. Try dishes like smoked seitan teriyaki, yam and taro tempura, and stir-fried soba noodles, each combined with miso soup, brown rice, and spring rolls.

Heather Tierney—a former TONY Food & Drink writer—built her rep with buzzy spots Pulqueria and Apothéke. Tierney then turned from witching-hour boozing to daylight juicing via this vegetarian "butcher" shop. Find witty variations on classic dishes, like a squash carbonara and cauliflower "T-bone." 

Bread-peddling Belgian megachain Le Pain Quotidien is behind this apothecary-inspired wine bar, a sister to the Ghent, Belgium original. The marble countertop is intended to resemble a 19th-century pharmacy and the lab coat-clad bar staff pour unfiltered, biodynamic wines curated by Le Pain Quotidien founder Alain Coumont. The food menu is similarly organic and eschews animal products. Instead expect chefly “prescriptions” of plant-based bites.

This vegan gem, outfitted with soothing sage-colored walls, soft amber lighting and a buzzing, cheerily staffed counter, is a welcome addition to the less veggie-compliant Upper West Side. An earthy salad combines red quinoa, white beans, corn, red peppers, avocado and lime-mustard vinaigrette in one invigoratingly fresh starter. It provides a light counterpoint to the fried seitan medallion panini, a creation that teams a wheat-gluten cutlet with cashew-based “goat cheese,” peppery arugula and chopped tomatoes on a hunk of yeasty homemade focaccia. 

Find bites like jackfruit tacos, seitan piccata and tofu Benedicts on the eclectic vegan menu at this spin-off of Chelsea’s Blossom. Try the not-too-sweet chocolate ganache for a delicious end to your meal. 

This longtime East Village hangout offers both regular meat-free dishes—grilled seitan nachos, black-bean chili, stir-fries—and “live foods” made from uncooked fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds. Naturally, there are loads of salads and some macrobiotically balanced quinoa-and-seaweed combos, too.

Vegan comfort food is the focus of this Williamsburg charmer: On the menu, find soul warmers like seitan buffalo wings, jerk tofu bowls, chickpea Parmesan heroes and desserts.

After ambling past Chinatown shop windows displaying glistening ducks and flopping fish, vegetarians will be relieved to step into this meat-free haven—even if the dark-green carpeting and pale-green walls call to mind a corporate office. The menu offers excellent and convincing mock-meat dishes, including delicate “shrimp” dumplings (made with rice flour, yams and tofu), crispy, slightly sweet sesame “chicken” (deep-fried bean curd skin) and Peking “spare ribs”—yams doused in a peppery sauce. Order a fresh fruit shake for dessert.

Named after a kung fu combat style from 1978 cult classic Five Deadly Venoms and papered in vintage martial-art movie posters from the ’70s and ’80s, the 14-seat restaurant serves up plant-based riffs on classics like a fried oyster-mushroom banh mi and a cremini-mushroom-lentil burger with house-made ketchup and cashew cheese. 

Mother-and-son team Brenda and Aaron Beener give soul food a vegan overhaul at this Harlem eatery, decorated with burgundy walls, maple banquettes and penny-tile floors. Under fake-out menu categories such as “beef” and “chicken,” find mock-meat creations including BBQ lotus-root “riblets” and Cajun-style “crawfish,” subbing burdock root for the sea critters. 

The historic red sauce joint that is just oozing New York charm like plant-based mozzarella offers an entirely vegan menu of old school Italian favorites. Pizza, pasta dishes, vegan meatballs, soups and desserts like cannoli and tiramisu are on the extensive menu. 

Public Records, which opened in March of 2019, is a music-focused cafe, record "hi-fi bar" and performance space. Beyond the beats, it is also a plant-forward restaurant, though only the daytime cafe portion is vegan.

Joya Carlton (the Butcher’s Daughter, Buvette) teams with Sara and Erica Kubersky (MooShoes, Modern Love Brooklyn) for this Lower East Side grocery store and delicatessen that’s exclusively stocked with vegan products. Along with prepackaged and pantry items, the deli counter offers house-made meat-free sandwiches, salads and pastries. End the meal on a sweet note with soft-serve sundaes featuring your choice of dairy-free ice cream (vanilla, chocolate) and toppings like a coconut-chocolate Magic Shell and puffed chickpeas. 

Einat Admony seasons chickpea batter three ways at her falafel and smoothie bar: traditional (with parsley and cilantro), sweet (with roasted red pepper) and spicy (with Tunisian spices and garlic). She pairs the terrific falafel with tasty salads like marinated beets, spicy Moroccan carrot salad or baba ghanoush, and three dipping sauces. 

Sprawling across two levels with a light, airy dining room upstairs and a speakeasy-themed bar downstairs, Planta Queen’s a great pick for larger groups of herbivores. Its lengthy menu includes fish-free takes on sushi, dumpling varieties and oodles of noodles.