Best vegan and vegetarian restaurants
Published 05 January 2024

A serene haven on the streets of Soho, Alex Gauthier’s boutique townhouse (ring the doorbell to gain entrance) features dazzlingly white dining rooms, with heavy starched tablecloths and mirrors providing an apt backdrop for some genuinely progressive cooking. Gauthier has been exploring the possibilities of vegan cuisine for many years, creating what he describes as a vision of ‘French gastronomy without using animals’. His artistry, techniques and inspiration may be wholly Gallic, but the results on the plate speak of cuisine sans frontières. Guests now choose from the full ‘grand diner’ tasting menu or a shorter and cheaper ‘petit diner’ served from 5pm most evenings. The repertoire is emphatically seasonal and endlessly creative: a centrepiece entitled ‘barbecued loin of kohlrabi’, for example, involves charred slices of the bulb-shaped brassica ringed by cucumber, samphire and sea broth, with the addition of sake-infused beurre blanc. Other summer offerings could range from a serving of heritage Norfolk carrot – a ‘soft and crunchy composition’ scented with tarragon and served alongside a little cup of burnt orange cappuccino – to roast fennel splayed out atop a melange of Szechuan pickled blackberry, borlotti beans, fennel and blackcurrant leaf tea. As proceedings drift towards sweetness, Gauthier’s kitchen might create peach with green shiso and lime sorbet or a Norvegienne brûlée with English strawberries and sablé breton. Harmonious wine pairings complement the cuisine, with France as the main contender and a wholehearted commitment to vintages produced without animal products.

Famously founded by the International Society for Krishna Consciousness in 1979 (the Hare Krishna Temple is next door), this vegetarian/vegan evergreen is still making friends – thanks to its happy 'karma-free' vibe, low prices and ‘pure’ meat-free cooking. The place is run like a canteen and it’s invariably packed: join the queue, grab an alcohol-free drink (lassi, rose milkshake, mint lemonade), collect a tray and pay at the counter. Thalis are the headline acts, with regularly changing curries, soups, breads and Indian desserts such as shrikhand or gulab jamun. The kitchen even serves up a few international favourites including lasagne, pizza slices, spinach rolls, veggie burgers and cheesecake. Takeaways too.

At first sight, Land doesn't look like one of the most consistent addresses for plant-focussed dining in Birmingham city centre. Sensibly dressed in muted grey and green, the small, shop-fronted dining room sits discreetly in an elegant Grade II-listed Victorian shopping arcade – the penny only drops when you take a look at the menu. The food may be strictly vegetarian/vegan, but leave any preconceptions behind – it’s a real one-off.

A broadly based clientele gives the place plenty of enthusiastic support: ‘The food looks great, tastes great and is great value for money – and I'm not a vegetarian either,’ is a common refrain. Expect a choice of four- or six-course tasting menus offering a mix of global ideas and a galaxy of flavours, kicking off with bites of potato crisp layered with fragrantly spiced pumpkin, coriander, beetroot and apple, topped with yoghurt and tonburi seeds. Elsewhere, a boldly flavoured char siu carrot with spring onion and delicate rice mousse, sprinkled with crisped wild rice set the tone for our lunch.

If the kitchen strains under the challenge of working without butter and eggs, it doesn’t show – the standout for us was a delicate, tender leek dish with a luscious, rich tapioca and dashi sauce topped with beads of seaweed caviar. And the ‘non-butter’ that arrived with the bread was a revelation. We loved the finale, too – a delectable chocolate, balsamic and blackberry confection. Service hits just the right note, and staff give sound advice when it comes to the thoughtfully constructed list of mainly low-intervention wines.

The Sachdev family's neighbourhood restaurant can trace its roots in Ashton back to 1972, when an entirely vegetarian Indian restaurant must have seemed distinctly avant-garde to those only familiar with high-street curry houses. Since then, generations of cooks with roots in the regional cuisines of the Subcontinent have helped elevate Lily's to its current status, while a shop counter teeming with indigenous ingredients and sweetmeats is an indispensable part of the allure. The place is held in high esteem locally, and a confirmed regular applauds everything from the crisp vegetable samosas (with a good kick of chilli) and the masala dosa (with decent sambar and coconut chutney) to a substantial serving of delicious papdi chaat stirred through with sharp tamarind chutney. Among the main courses, the vegetable jaipuri (a Rajasthani dish) features a torrent of finely diced veg with cashews and grated paneer in a creamy tomato sauce. Top-notch accompaniments include various uttapam pancakes and Gujarati roti slippy with ghee. Rasgulla and gulab jamun feature on the dessert list, for the incorrigibly sweet of tooth; otherwise, tripti bhog is a mind-blowingly rich paneer-and-nut creation worth trying. There are enlivening spicy cocktails too.

The edge-of-Leeds location isn't glamorous but Prashad continues to draw fans from all over Yorkshire; there are some very smart cars in the car park. Minal Patel's cooking style and creativity have grown steadily over the years; her food has always been fragrant, with vivid aromatics the dominant feature, but today the most significant difference is in the presentation. What was once a fairly rustic offering is now a masterclass in creative plating without being outright dots-and-dribbles cheffy. The notion of an amuse-bouche was once a stretch, but now it’s likely you’ll get a spoon of slow-roasted dhal with gram-flour vermicelli and beetroot chutney. Sweet and earthy, it’s the perfect way to kick-start a meal. Among the classics are kopra pethis (fresh coconut dough balls, precisely spherical, zesty and moist) and mausmi ghota (essentially a crunchy-on-the-outside/soft-on-the-inside ball of spiky root ginger and herby mint with mashed Jerusalem artichokes), while sanku (a deeply traditional dosa) is presented as dinky ice-cream cones. Kofta (spiced lentil dough balls revved up with caraway-infused tomato rasam) hit all the senses, while the paneer and cauliflower biryani is a salty-sweet-heat firework. The setting is a cavernous former pub but there's no doubt you're in an Indian restaurant (complete with flashes of pink bling); there's also a subtle, sophisticated vibe, emphasised by the seven-course tasting menu, a delicate distillation of regular dishes and a great introduction to the depth and complexity of Minal Patel's cooking. Excellent craft beer pairings match the food, Cobra is on tap, and there’s an all-vegan and organic wine list – in addition to cocktails and mocktails.

Opened on Bristol’s waterfront Cargo development in 2017, this 'restaurant in a shipping container' may be starting to show its age (in good weather, the terrace is the place to be), but Root still delivers fresh creativity on the plate. Part of Josh Eggleton’s Pony Restaurant Group, it offers an ever-changing seasonal menu of vegetable-led small plates – although there are always a couple of fish and meat choices, say butterflied red mullet with Isle of Wight tomatoes and saffron aïoli. 

A recent meal kicked off with a simple plate of crudités, elevated by the presence of sparklingly fresh raw vegetables, punchy pickles and a delicious cashew and seaweed dip. Light and fluffy gnudi-style ewe’s curd dumplings are a Root signature dish and rightly so; the accompanying braised greens had great flavour, accentuated by tart and fragrant preserved lemon. By contrast, Wye Valley asparagus with peas, broad beans, radish and cider shallots was spring personified in one fresh and invigorating assemblage. A beautifully made honey and brown butter tart brought the meal to a satisfactorily sweet conclusion. The wine list offers 25 choices, with eight available by the carafe. The emphasis is on natural viticulture, but with enough organic and biodynamic options to please the wider wine-drinking audience. 

With founding chef Rob Howell having relocated to the sister Root in Wells, we couldn’t completely dismiss the nagging feeling that the Bristol original is now something of a poor relation. In addition to the interior’s wear and tear, service was somewhat inattentive and there was a general lack of excitement about the experience. Nevertheless, there is still plenty to love about Root, and it remains a Bristol stalwart.

Yotam Ottolenghi's name has become synonymous in recent years with a style of aspirational, but practically doable, cookery writing, thanks to a portfolio of bestselling recipe books and a high-profile weekly presence in The Guardian. His speciality is food that orchestrates the upstanding flavours and spicy warmth of the southern and eastern fringes of Europe and the Levant. In this spacious, appealing venue, with bar counter seating and banquettes in chilli-pepper red, the various culinary influences are brought into exciting synergy. Vegetables are very much at the forefront, producing appetisers such as grilled leeks with pickled walnuts and date/walnut praline, or charred hispi in almond XO, while main dishes include an assembly of grilled carrots, hawaij-spiced greens and lentils, honey-pickled kumquats and crispy garlic. Let anyone dare say you don't notice you're not eating meat. Should you be determined to do so, however, there may be a saddleback pork chop with kohlrabi and apple kimchi. There's fish too, perhaps grilled halibut with curly peppers and capers, seasoned in khmeli-suneli, a Georgian version of five-spice. Close the deal with a fennel meringue, served with lime and pastis sorbet and lemon curd, or a chillied-up cherry and chocolate fondant. The drinks list is an enticement in its own right, with a slate of inspired cocktails, gin variations, and softs such as hibiscus agua fresca or watermelon and rose sharbat.

The simple shop frontage and low-key location don’t do justice to the warm welcome and vibrant dishes offered at this neighbourhood restaurant, which gives pan-Asian cuisine an intriguing vegan spin. Suissi is a full-on family affair with Malaysian-born Mama Lim sharing her home-style plant-based creations, while assorted members of her next generation foster a cheery informality out front. Lim's evangelistic commitment to natural ingredients rightly eschews the common flavour shortcuts of refined sugars, MSG and the like. A smattering of starters might range from crisp pickles with explosive pops of pineapple punctuating a punchy achar (peanut and chilli sauce) to shimeji mushrooms spiked with salt and chilli, so crisp and utterly moreish that another portion follows in quick succession. Larger appetites will be sated with soupy noodle combinations deploying a wide variety of traditional broth and stock bases, each one handmade from scratch. Mushrooms also star in other assured dishes, from an intense 'lion's mane' rendang to a 'king trumpet' katsu in a curried sauce based on apples and carrots. Sweet finishes embrace a homemade frozen ‘scoop of the week’ or pisang goreng (Indonesian banana fritters). Mainstream Asian beers and a short set of vinous staples underpin an idiosyncratic cocktail list melding modern mixology with oriental themes (try the Sakura Fizz, which combines floral and fruity flavours to recreate Japanese cherry blossom season in a glass). The place itself has a certain make-do-and-mend studenty optimism – slightly shambolic with an eclectic but happy jumble of treasured odds and ends. Mind you, the lively, eclectic crowd jostling for the 30-odd covers are here for the food, not the interior design.

There’s fierce competition for a table at this vegan outpost from the feted Xi’an Impression stable. Where the mothership is perfunctory in everything but the food, this space has been dressed up to fit in on Islington’s well-heeled Upper Street. Yucca plants and banquette seating might provide a veneer (and attract a social media-savvy clientele) but most people are here for the hot and fragrant flavours which make the plant-based nature of the menu a secondary consideration. ‘Fish-fragrant’ aubergine is served in silky finger lengths that have a weighty, meaty density, while freshly made tofu (the star of the show), appears in myriad dishes from Szechuan, northeastern Dongbei and the Cantonese south. If not mapo tofu, then how about bouncy cubes fresh out the fryer in a lacy batter, liberally scattered with the fruity heat of dried chilli? Faux meat substitutes are less thrilling compared to sizzling king oyster mushrooms in black pepper sauce or plump wontons in an addictively good house-special sauce. Once you’ve scored a table, service becomes friendly and efficient through the buzz and bustle. To drink, there's a handful of beers and a choice of serviceable wines from £19.50.

Scoring a table at Vanderlyle should trigger triumphant fanfares through the streets of Cambridge. This plant-led restaurant on independently minded Mill Road has the most ardent admirers, who are quick on the Tock reservation site every month to book their fix of Alex Rushmer’s thoughtful cooking. They’re drawn by the chef’s flavour-packed, vividly creative vegetarian cuisine, which defies ‘hungry gap’ privations to celebrate what’s available and hint at what’s to come. A mixed seed cracker snaps the six-course dinner into action with brio, a vehicle for cashew parfait (who needs the livery stuff tonight?) brightened with the tiniest dots of clementine gel; a mini doughnut bounces to the table too, bringing happy 'cheese toastie' vibes thanks to a Sussex camembert custard and homemade chutney. Squash takes its seasonal bow in one delightful little cup of golden-orange soup swirled with coriander oil and scattered with soy-toasted pumpkin seeds. If you haven’t eaten all that malty wholegrain focaccia, now’s the time to mop. Charred gem lettuce with a caviar-freckled seaweed butter sauce and a little heap of batter scraps follows, sea herbs and bitter leaves sweeping in to balance the richness with living, spring-like minerality. A glass of Auxerrois from Davenport’s Sussex vineyards keeps the brightness going, so too the oceanic pep of an alcohol-free Pentire and tonic. The care taken with alcohol-free pairings and seasonal cordials is notable – witness the house-made apple kombucha with soda water, brimful with the spirit of farmhouse cider and a brilliant match for butter-roasted, soused and puréed turnip with turnip-top gremolata, Granny Smith apple and hazelnut-butter vinaigrette. Parsnip and vanilla ice cream heralds dessert, the earthy savouriness of the root veg lifted by prettily pink sweet-sharp rhubarb; it’s followed by a Pump Street chocolate crémeux – a silky finale with griottine cherries and a little agrodolce giving their fruity acidity, a chocolate feuilletine and spelt streusel their texture, and a glass of velvety, caramelly cream sherry slipping down a treat.