The best vegetarian in London
41 places
Balady
££Hummus treated as a dish rather than a dip - served warm, in a bowl, as the meal itself.
Bubala
£££Entirely vegetarian and almost never described that way - the point is that nobody at the table notices what is missing.
Club Mexicana
££Tacos, nachos and burritos built on jackfruit and vegan chicken, started as a market stall and now in Kingly Court - the rare vegan restaurant nobody eats at because it is vegan.
Also at Seven Dials Market and on Commercial Street in Spitalfields. Kingly Court is the sit-down one; the market sites are counters.
Diwana Bhel Poori House
£Trading on Drummond Street since 1971 and the oldest of the Euston vegetarian Indian restaurants - dosas, bhel poori and an all-you-can-eat lunch thali that is among the cheapest proper meals in central London.
BRING YOUR OWN ALCOHOL - unlicensed, with no corkage. The lunchtime buffet is the value order. Pine benches and no decor to speak of; it has not changed in decades and that is the appeal.
En Root
££The Indian-East African-Caribbean crossover almost nothing in central London cooks, from a food truck that took a room in 2016.
Facing Heaven
££Vegan Sichuan built on tofu and mushrooms rather than mock meat, from the chef behind the much-missed Mao Chow.
Falafel Zaki Zaki
£A Palestinian-run stall doing generously filled wraps for the price of a coffee.
Gauthier Soho
££££Alexis Gauthier turned a classical French restaurant entirely vegan in 2021 - the same townhouse dining room, the same technique, no animal products at all. Very few kitchens at this level have made that switch.
Across several floors of a Soho townhouse, which makes it feel like eating in a private house. Tasting menus are the format.
Govinda's
£A temple-run canteen serving rotating thalis in the middle of Soho since 1979, for less than anything else in W1 charges for a hot meal.
Gujarati Rasoi
£Mother-and-son Gujarati cooking from family recipes - thalis, bhajia and dhal - at a market where almost everything else is European.
Holy Carrot
£££Plant-based cooking that also drops refined sugar and gluten, and eats like none of those are missing.
Horn OK Please
£Samosa chaat built to order - the samosas crushed under chickpea curry, yoghurt and tamarind while still hot - from an all-vegetarian Borough Market stall.
Hoxton Beach Falafel
£A market stall that has been frying falafel to order for years, and is on more London falafel lists than most sit-down restaurants.
Hullabaloo
£A permanent fixture in Greenwich Market rather than a rotating stall, doing vegetarian and vegan Indian street food.
Hummus Bar
££Modelled on the hummus places of Tel Aviv, where a bowl of hummus is lunch rather than a side - the toppings list runs from oriental beef to sloppy joe.
Indian Veg
£An all-you-can-eat North Indian vegetarian buffet that has fed Islington on a shoestring for decades, in a room papered with hand-made posters about vegetarianism.
Itadaki Zen
££A thirty-seat organic vegan Japanese room, shojin-influenced rather than a Western vegan menu with Japanese dishes bolted on.
Jam Delish
££Plant-based Caribbean from siblings cooking their grandparents' recipes, and a 2025 award won against Caribbean kitchens generally rather than vegan ones.
Magic Falafel
£Entirely vegan, fried fresh to order from 100 per cent ground chickpeas - trading in Camden Market since 2013.
Mallow
££The Mildreds kitchen given a lighter, more seasonal brief, in a restored townhouse covered in floral murals at the edge of Borough Market.
Mildreds
££Open on Lexington Street since 1988, which makes it the restaurant that made vegetarian food in London normal rather than worthy. Globally drawn menu, and it went fully vegan without losing the crowd.
Sites in Soho, Camden, Covent Garden, King's Cross and Victoria. Soho is the original and the one worth going out of your way for. It does not take bookings at every site - check before travelling.
Mr Falafel
£Palestinian falafel from a market stall in Shepherd's Bush, and the one name that appears on every falafel list in London.
Mukbap
££Entirely vegan Korean cooking - a category that barely exists in London - served with the warmth of a family kitchen.
Naïfs
£££A seasonal vegan set menu on a quiet Peckham street, listed in the Michelin Guide - rare for an entirely vegan kitchen.
Pilpel
£The City lunch falafel - fast, consistent and vegetarian by default across a handful of sites.
Plates
££££The first fully vegan restaurant in Britain to win a Michelin star, awarded in 2025. Kirk Haworth cooks a tasting menu that treats vegetables with fine-dining technique rather than as a substitution exercise.
Run by Kirk Haworth with his sister Keeley. One open kitchen, floor-to-ceiling windows, polished concrete. Tables are released in batches and go quickly - this is the hardest vegan booking in the country.
Purezza
££The UK's first vegan pizzeria, making its own plant-based cheeses in house - the part everyone else gets wrong.
Queen of Sheba
££A long-running Kentish Town Ethiopian with a vegetarian platter that converts people who came for the meat.
Rasa
£An all-vegetarian Keralan kitchen behind a shocking pink shopfront, cooking with coconut and curry leaf rather than cream.
Rovi
£££The Ottolenghi group's fermentation-and-fire room, where vegetables go on the grill and get the treatment meat usually gets.
Sagar
£Udupi cooking from coastal Karnataka, and a masala dosa the length of your forearm - one of the cheapest proper sit-down meals in the West End.
Saravanaa Bhavan
£The London outpost of the Chennai vegetarian chain, and the cheapest way in the West End to eat a properly made masala dosa.
Shree Krishna Vada Pav
£Vada pav - the Mumbai potato-fritter roll - done properly and cheaply, from a counter rather than a dining room.
Sutton & Sons
££Runs a fully vegan chip shop alongside the traditional ones - banana blossom instead of cod.
Tendril
£££Vegetable-led cooking a minute off Regent Street that behaves like a neighbourhood restaurant, with real technical skill on texture.
The Gate
£££Opened in 1989 in a former artists' studio and still the most serious vegetarian cooking in west London - Indo-Iraqi-Jewish influences from the founding brothers rather than a generic meat-free menu.
Hammersmith is the flagship, in a high-ceilinged studio space. Also in Islington (370 St John Street) and Marylebone. Long-standing enough that it predates almost everything else on this list.
Tofu Vegan
££Chinese cooking done entirely without meat, and the strongest name on every vegan list in London - three of the four independent guides we read put it top. Aubergine in garlic sauce and the mock-meat dishes are what the queues are for.
Books out well ahead on Upper Street; there are further sites including Spitalfields and Marylebone. Not a substitution menu - most dishes are traditionally vegetable-based Chinese cooking rather than meat imitations.
Unity Diner
££Traditional British cooking done entirely without animal products - the place the vegan community names when asked for British food rather than international.
Non-profit; surplus goes to animal welfare work. The only fully vegan British kitchen on this list.
Zeit & Za'atar
££Za'atar manakish and vegetarian Levantine plates in Ealing, a long way from where the guides usually look.
Zeret Kitchen
££A family-run Camberwell room where everything arrives on one injera for the table to tear at - communal eating with no way to opt out of it.
If everything else is full
Reliable rather than remarkable. These are chains — worth knowing about when you need somewhere open, not worth a journey.
Temple of Seitan
£A vegan fried chicken shop that behaves exactly like a fried chicken shop - seitan in buttermilk-style batter, burgers, wings and fries, at chicken-shop prices.