The Top 12 Vegetarian Restaurants in London
Veganism is currently popular. Even Mildred’s, a cherished Soho institution, now serves only plant-based foods. Nonetheless, there are still many fantastic vegetarian restaurants, cafés, and food stands that serve those who wish to dine without the flesh but still enjoy things like butter, cheese, and eggs.
As you read on, you’ll discover the top 12 vegetarian restaurants in London with wholesome veggie cafés, meatless curry restaurants, and posh eateries that’ll tempt even die-hard carnivores to try vegetarianism.
Top 12 Vegetarian Restaurants in London
The London vegetarian and vegan restaurants listed below are entirely vegan or vegetarian by choice; the others are simply places where you can enjoy a delicious meal without consuming any meat, which is something you should all be doing more of.
A ranking of the top vegetarian restaurants in London from a few years ago would have been very brief and considerably shorter outside of the city.
But today, not only do most restaurants provide a good selection of delectable dishes with a concentration on vegetables, but the number among all restaurants has skyrocketed.
Let’s start the list of the top 12 vegetarian restaurants in London.
1. Naifs
Perhaps the best vegan restaurant you’ve ever heard of, Naifs, is a haven of Ercol & herringbone parquet hidden behind Peckham’s Queens Road. An open kitchen prepares food that is both warm and modern.
Their cuisine serves as a showcase for the wealth & beauty found in plants and skillfully crafted goods. Dishes are produced-driven and coordinated and come in the list of London’s top 10 vegetarian restaurants.
Chef Tom Heale, who once worked at Vanilla Black, one of London’s first truly upscale vegetarian restaurants, feels at ease making vegan food.
Although things are more straightforward here, there is no denying the ingenuity of dishes like sweet and sour aubergine agrodolce over shoestring fries and smoked lentil pâté with fig jam.
Naifs’ main course is a seasonal set meal that is modelled after multi-course feasts like Greek meze. It is a casual spread of cuisine meant to be shared family-style, with additional appetizers and desserts available.
They specialize in handcrafted botanical cocktails, natural & biodynamic wines, and ciders. You may find handmade sodas, cold brew teas, and kombucha.
A hidden gem away from the rush and bustle, Naifs is pleasant, laid-back, and homey, & the dining experience is straightforward. They will feed you if you come in! Leaving you free to take pleasure in yourself and your dining experience.
Although Naifs is only open from Thursday through Sunday and is frequently busy, it is worth trying to get a reservation.
2. Gauthier
Cross-French chef Alexis Gauthier made a controversial announcement in 2021: Gauthier, his Soho house restaurant, would go vegan entirely, just as he had done since 2016. Everyone who believed it was a publicity gimmick has been proven utterly incorrect.
Comes in the list of the top 10 vegetarian restaurants in London, the 10-course grand dîner tasting menu at this restaurant is, in a word, exquisite. It is presented by a friendly staff who wear their expertise casually.
The menu fluctuates according to the season; the biggest discoveries on the present one are a freshly baked, pillowy ras-el-hanout & olive bun.
3. Bubala Soho
Vegetables have always benefited from Middle Eastern cuisine, but one restaurant goes above and beyond.
You’ll find hearty mushroom kebabs, latkes that have been deep-fried, and humous that have been covered with brown butter and is exhilaratingly delicious. Get as much of the all-winner cuisine as you can by going with friends.
Where would vegetarians go if houmous and falafel weren’t around? Because Chickpea has graciously fed generations of meat dodgers, desolate and angry and Bubala comes in the list of London’s top 10 vegetarian restaurants.
The houmous and falafel at the meat-free Middle Eastern small-plate restaurant Bubala, which recently debuted in Soho to join its Spitalfields counterpart, are excellent. Still, they aren’t the most intriguing items on the menu.
First up is the unexpected baba ghanoush. This aubergine dip is puréed to a fine silky texture and drenched in a deep green lake of curry leaf oil, which gives the dish’s smokey overtones a fragrant boost.
For example, the dolls’ house-sized leek kebab gave a thrilling rush of sweet-sour flavour due to its acidic mango marinade while looking like something a nasty carnivore would prepare to torture their vegetarian buddy at a BBQ.
Then there were the untidy but enduring sweetcorn ribs. Many items on plant-based menus make the rosy claims of being “ribs” or “steaks” but lack the textural substance to support those claims.
Bubala’s sweetcorn ribs are a happy exception; they cut a cob into burnt, sticky strips that arrived slathered in sauce.
Among the top 10 vegetarian restaurants in London, it is appropriate that they have showered their latkes with love, as “bubble” is a Jewish term of endearment.
These latkes were made from confit potato that was neatly stacked rather than grated and served as deep-fried cuboid shapes. These would undoubtedly disgust a purist, but they were a carbohydrate lover’s paradise, especially when covered in the accompanying garlic sauce.
Bubala excels in zingy, light foods that sing with mango or citrus fruit flavours except for hefty latkes. The harmony isn’t always perfect: the accompanying barbary jam’s sweetness overpowered the mushroom pâté’s mild umami flavour.
But, pretty much everything in this place is wonderful when it was spread over Bubala’s famous luffa, a burnt, thick, & chewy flatbread with plenty of personalities.
4. The Gate
This location of veggie pioneer The Gate, which is across from Sadler’s Wells, presents a light and airy modern front with pendant lights, stark black tables, and bare hardwood floors and comes in the list of the top 10 vegetarian restaurants in London.
Michael & Adrian Daniel, brothers with Indo-Iraqi ancestry, founded The Gate in 1989 because they wanted to reproduce the wide range of flavours & culinary experiences they had as kids when eating food with Arabic, Indian, and Jewish influences.
Michael and Adrian’s restaurant in Hammersmith quickly gained a reputation for serving vegetarians and non-vegetarians. The Gate is a beloved institution with a devoted and loyal following.
The holistic approach to cooking used by The Gate includes a focus on healthy eating. Products are acquired as locally and responsibly as possible, as well as the carefully curated menu lets the subtle and distinctive flavours of plant-based cuisine shine through.
Enjoy a meze platter with dishes like featherlight artichoke tempura, raw pad Thai, and salty feta fritters, or choose from the global menu items like aubergine schnitzel and wild mushroom risotto cake. Moreover, Marylebone and Hammersmith have stores.
The Gate has received various honours and awards, including the title of Best Vegetarian Restaurant in the World by Epicurious and the title of Best Restaurant in the United States by Zagat.
5. Tofu Vegan
Well, there is a lot of tofu served here, & yes, it is a vegan’s dream come true, but this Upper Street restaurant in Islington goes far beyond what its name suggests.
It offers a completely vegan interpretation of traditional Chinese cuisine and is run by the same team as Xi’an Impression in Highbury.
Even without the other dim sum or larger items like the sizzling fried tofu in “fish-fragrant” sauce, the plump wontons, loaded with shredded tofu & vegetables in a red pepper house sauce, merit a visit, and Tofu Vegan comes in the top 10 vegetarian restaurants in London.
The Chongqing “chicken” will win over mock-meat sceptics with its mountain of spring onion and crispy chilli bits.
6. Jikoni
With a menu influenced by Ravinder Bhogal’s childhood spent in Kenya and her family’s Punjabi background, the popular Marylebone restaurant bills itself as a “no borders kitchen” that caters to all dietary needs.
Consequently, the renowned prawn toast Scotch egg can be eaten alongside vegan and vegetarian dishes like dhal makhani and Montgomery’s cheddar croquetas, and the moilee (a creamy coconut curry) can be had with either butternut squash and roasted hake and mussels. Meanwhile, the vegan saffron and pistachio cake is a genuinely decadent treat.
Jikoni comes in the list of the top 10 vegetarian restaurants in London, and if you’re looking for a special date place, go no further.
7. Acme Fire Cult
Who can forget these high-rise burgers with knives through them? The beards-and-barbeque cooking boom of the 2010s wasn’t nice to the meat-averse.
It would be simple to write off Acme Fire Cult as just another beefy brofist after reading its self-description as a “live fire idea” and viewing its gloomy, industrial pictures.
But to say so would be doing it a great disservice since this is unquestionably one of the best restaurants in London for vegetarians & anyone who simply likes to get their hands dirty in a tonne of extremely sexy cuisine. AC, which is located in the same courtyard in Dalston as The Dusty Knuckle, emphasizes vegetables.
Ancho chillies soaked in beer are used to make a fiery sauce, and a house “Marmite” to spread on Ararat flatbreads is the result of a cooperation with 40FT Brewery.
The picture is completed by Holly Willcocks, a former employee of Noble Rot, and a brief but potent cocktail menu comes in the list of the top 10 vegetarian restaurants in London.
Unique vegan sauces & condiments will soon be accessible online, and some sick merch is already available.
8. Tatale
Although Akwasi Brenya-restaurant Mensa’s in The Africa Centre isn’t fully vegetarian, it excels in that area. It is one of 2022’s most anticipated new debuts, and Tatale is among the top 10 vegetarian restaurants in London.
The late Mozambican poet and artist Malangatana Ngwenya’s carefully restored mural hangs over the cushion-covered area where you can sit and read the menu’s explanation of how each item came to be there.
Look for jewellery, a sparkling South African speciality buzzing with cinnamon, as well as the sesame-sprinkled mash rice & groundnut dish.
9. Casa Fofò
The copy practically writes itself: a neighbourhood eatery in Hackney with exposed-brick walls, seasonal ingredients supplied from nearby farmers, and shelves loaded with ferments.
Nevertheless, it doesn’t because Casa Fofò is a place where nothing is as it seems. Chef Adolfo de Cecco constantly strays from the norm, serving fermented tom yum and potato or fro-yo swirled with mouthwatering umeboshi plums.
Butter that has been caramelized and roasted yeast improves even the best sourdough bread and comes in the list of London’s top 10 vegetarian restaurants.
The vegan-tasting menu is excellent, and since meat & fish are only accented anyhow, this restaurant is a great choice for a party because you can all order various things without it ruining the event. An eight-course dinner menu costs £62, while the same number of courses costs £49.
Lunch here is exceptional value for this area of town (or any other). The Michelin star appears to be nearly by accident.
10. Club Mexicana
Hot-pink Club Mexicana, one of London’s first vegan street food establishments, has been operating since 2014 and only keeps getting better. It has residences in Kingly Court in addition to Seven Dials Market.
It’s practically impossible not to have a great time with this fun and friendly team, whether you’re vegan or not.
11. Tendril
The “plant-first” restaurant owned by Rishim Sachdeva has grown steadily since opening its first location in Putney in 2019.
Tendril is still serving up generous, considerate, and utterly delectable vegan plates of food at its temporary location just south of Oxford Street (plans are in motion for a permanent location).
Occasionally, a dish with dairy is identified, such as baked brie over truffle honey & seeded bread.
Comes in the list of the top 10 vegetarian restaurants in London. They cook with creativity, attention, and the ideal amount of technique while utilizing the seasons and finding high-quality ingredients. All of the dishes are vegan unless otherwise specified.
12. Persepolis
Persepolis is a cute little café that is housed inside a Persian delicatessen. It serves tasty meals. The atmosphere is vibrant, packed, and endearingly wacky.
A few tables and chairs have been squeezed in between shelves that are overflowing with speciality foods, embossed glassware, musical equipment, and shisha pipes.
These serve as the backdrop for a liberal vegetarian interpretation of Levantine and Iranian cuisine with Peckham influences, such as the usage of Moroccan harissa with fried plantains.
Among London’s top 10 vegetarian restaurants, the foundation is made up of meze and wraps, with seasonal contents like quince, halloumi, and caramelized celeriac. Afghan green tea is followed by pomegranate juice and a date & cardamom latte.
Also, a big meze is quite reasonably priced at about £8.50. A Turkish delight sundae combines Turkish delight and halva pieces with whipped cream, vanilla & saffron ice cream, rose syrup and petals. Tastes delicious but sounds vile.
Final Note
Nowadays, there are many delicious meatless options available at most restaurants, and the number of places serving purely vegetarian or vegan food has increased dramatically.
To make things easier, we’ve made the above guide on London’s top 12 vegetarian restaurants. So no matter what kind of ambience you’re looking for, you’re likely to discover one you love.
These pure vegetarian restaurants in London offer a variety of options for our plant-loving friends, including upscale top veggie restaurants in London and well-liked lunch spots. Find them out!
