London was voted the world’s number one vegan-friendly city in 2025 by HappyCow, and when you spend time eating your way through the capital’s plant-based scene, the result does not feel like a surprise.
The range is genuinely extraordinary: a Michelin-starred tasting menu in Shoreditch that refuses to even use the word “vegan”; a 100% plant-based French fine dining room in a Soho townhouse; a Caribbean restaurant in Islington where the jerk “chicken” is made with oyster mushrooms and the Curry “Goat” with lentils and wheat protein; an Italian restaurant in Barbican where the cacio e pepe gets its creaminess from cashews.
Across every cuisine, every neighbourhood, and every level of formality, the best vegan restaurants in London are consistently making an argument that plant-based cooking has come entirely into its own.
This guide covers the most significant vegan restaurants in London in 2025 and 2026, from the Michelin-starred to the neighbourhood institutions, with every restaurant verified as currently open.
Key Takeaways
- London was named the world’s top vegan-friendly city in 2025 according to HappyCow, with more fully plant-based restaurants than almost any other city in Europe.
- In February 2025, Plates London became the first fully vegan restaurant in the United Kingdom to receive a Michelin star – a landmark moment for plant-based dining.
- The best vegan restaurants in London span every cuisine and every price point, from Caribbean and Sichuan to French fine dining and Middle Eastern sharing plates.
- Reservations are essential for the tasting-menu restaurants on this list, particularly Plates London, where bookings open months in advance and demand consistently outpaces availability.
- Most of London’s vegan restaurants are independently owned and operated, with a strong emphasis on seasonality, sustainability, and sourcing from local producers.
Fine Dining & Tasting Menus
Plates London
On 10 February 2025, Plates became the first fully plant-based restaurant in the United Kingdom to receive a Michelin star, and the moment felt significant well beyond the vegan dining community. Chef Kirk Haworth, who honed his craft at The French Laundry and Sat Bains and won Champion of Champions on Great British Menu, turned to plant-based cooking after being diagnosed with Lyme disease.
He opened Plates in Shoreditch in July 2024 with his sister Keeley, and the restaurant was immediately oversubscribed: when advance reservations opened, the website crashed under the weight of demand, with three months of tables filled within hours.
Credit: Time Out
The kitchen does not use the word “vegan” as it prefers “plant-based” and declines even that designation in conversation, instead letting the food speak entirely for itself. Maitake mushroom with black bean mole; caramelised lion’s mane with cauliflower cream, shio koji, rhubarb, and fermented green peppercorn; raw cacao gateau with sour cherry: the tasting menu changes with the seasons and pushes vegetables into registers of complexity and beauty that challenge every assumption about what a plant-based meal can be. The dining room is warm, stripped back, and intimate. It has slate floors, natural plaster, and counter seating with views into the kitchen. A chef’s table and two bedrooms for overnight stays were added in 2025.
Booking is essential and opens months in advance. Join the waitlist for cancellations.
Gauthier Soho
In a Georgian townhouse on Romilly Street in Soho, Gauthier has been one of London’s most celebrated vegan fine dining restaurants since Michelin-starred chef Alexis Gauthier made the room entirely plant-based in June 2021. At the time it was one of the most dramatic statements in London’s restaurant scene, converting a classic French fine dining room to 100% vegan.
Credit: Gauthier Soho
The menus take the language and technique of French haute cuisine and apply them rigorously and beautifully to plant-based ingredients: brioche feuilletée with carrot terrine; sweet onion agnolotti with miso and lemon; dark chocolate tart with black cardamom toffee and potato gelato. Five- and eight-course tasting menus are offered, with a wine list managed by a dedicated sommelier who guides vegan pairings with authority.
The townhouse setting that is spread across several intimate floors gives Gauthier an atmosphere of genuine occasion. It is one of the very few vegan restaurants in London where the room and the service match the ambition of the food.
Reservations strongly recommended.
Tendril
Around 85% of the menu at Tendril is plant-based and the kitchen calls itself “mostly vegan,” which conceals the fact that what arrives at the table is consistently among the most accomplished vegetable cooking in London.
Credit: Tendril
Chef Rishim Sachdeva’s restaurant in Mayfair occupies a dimly lit, gently romantic space just minutes from Oxford Circus, with sesame-speckled purple sweet potatoes, exceptional ferments, and a tiramisu that demonstrates exactly how well Italian dessert technique translates into plant-based form. The small plates and set menu formats offer flexibility for different appetites; the wine list is considered and well-priced.
Neighbourhood Icons
Mildreds
Mildreds opened in 1988 as a small vegetarian café in Soho, and it has been a constant presence in London’s plant-based dining landscape ever since. It’s a genuine institution in a city where restaurants rarely survive long enough to earn that title. In 2021 it went fully vegan, and it now operates across multiple London locations including Soho, Camden, King’s Cross, and Covent Garden.
Credit: Tripadvisor
The menu is globally inspired and changes with the seasons: Thai green curry, vegan mezze, Mexican-style plates, hearty soups, and a brunch menu that draws loyal regulars on weekends. The atmosphere is warm and informal, the welcome completely unconditional, and the quality reliably good across all sites. Mildreds is the vegan restaurant in London that visitors encounter first and return to most.
Mallow
From the same team behind Mildreds, Mallow is a more considered and slightly more elevated expression of the same ethos: 100% vegan, globally inspired, low-waste, and rigorously ingredient-focused. Sitting within yards of some of London’s best-known butchers, in the Borough Market location, is a conscious and confident statement of intent.
Credit: Tripadvisor
The kitchen draws on Indian, Middle Eastern, and Japanese traditions alongside European classics: porcini chestnut croquettes, cannellini apricot burgers, a rainbow root pavé, and a pithivier of mushroom, leek, and potato on the tasting menu. Excess food is donated to local charities; produce is sourced from hand-picked local growers. Mallow also has a Canary Wharf location, but the Borough Market original which is surrounded by the market’s extraordinary produce stalls is the one to visit.
Holy Carrot
On Portobello Road in Notting Hill, Holy Carrot is the restaurant that most convincingly demonstrates what plant-based cooking looks like when approached with the combined skill of a serious kitchen and a genuine philosophy.
Chef Daniel Watkins works with fermentation, open-fire cooking, and a commitment to low waste that extends through every element of the menu. Signature dishes include koji bread with chilli ragu and smoked mushroom; coal-roasted leeks; a coral tooth mushroom burger with pink fir potatoes and pickle mayo.
Credit: Tripadvisor
The room itself that has large windows overlooking Portobello, earthy materials, and sophisticated design makes the experience feel like a destination in itself. Founded by Irina Linovich, formerly a fashion producer at Vogue Ukraine, Holy Carrot combines aesthetic precision with culinary substance in a way that feels entirely its own. Six Michelin Guide appearances confirm what regulars already know.
Bubala
Bubala does not announce itself as a vegan restaurant. It describes itself as Middle Eastern, and the warm, intimate room functions as a neighbourhood restaurant in Shoreditch and the West End that happens to be 100% vegetarian with a mostly vegan menu throughout.
Credit: Bubala
The Middle Eastern sharing plates are vivid and generous: oyster mushroom skewers, falafel with exceptional sauces, smacked cucumbers, dishes built on the deep pantry of Levantine spice and technique. The “Bubala Knows Best” feasting menu is the only option at dinner and has a fully vegan version available. The Michelin Guide has taken note; the restaurants’ devoted local following was there long before.
Caribbean, Mexican & Global
Jam Delish
In Islington, Jam Delish is London’s most celebrated vegan Caribbean restaurant. It’s a family-run kitchen founded by siblings Jordan and Chyna that brings the flavours of the Caribbean to an entirely plant-based menu with exceptional skill and warmth.
Credit: Vegan Food & Living
Executive Chef Nathan Collymore, formerly of Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen, turns traditional island recipes into vegan creations that lose nothing in translation: the Curry “Goat” is made with lentils and wheat protein; the Caribbean Fried “Chicken” uses crunchy oyster mushrooms with garlic mash; Bajan “Fishcakes” and Jamaican “Oxtail” Stuffed Plantain are recurring signatures. The room with warm Caribbean colours, an indoor palm tree, and relaxed and welcoming service is one of the most atmospheric spaces in London’s vegan restaurant scene.
Club Mexicana
Club Mexicana began as a street food operation and has since grown into London’s most beloved vegan Mexican restaurant, with locations in Shoreditch, Soho, and Mercato Mayfair. The tacos are exceptional! You can choose from a wide range from Baja To-Fish tacos, crispy nachos, to loaded burritos built from fresh, locally sourced ingredients with genuine spice and confidence.
Credit: EATINBRIXTON
The restaurant brands itself on bold flavours and a lively atmosphere rather than its vegan credentials, which means it consistently attracts a mixed crowd and a level of buzz that purely plant-based venues rarely achieve. It is one of the most fun vegan restaurants in London, which is itself a category that deserves more entries.
Facing Heaven
In Hackney, Facing Heaven is a fully vegan Sichuan restaurant from the founder of the acclaimed Mao Chow. It’s a kitchen that applies the full aromatic, spiced intensity of Chinese regional cooking to a plant-based menu without concession or compromise.
Credit: Caitlin Isola
The Sichuan numbing heat, the doubanjiang, the mapo preparations and the chilli oil dishes all function exactly as they should. Facing Heaven is the best vegan restaurant in London for those who want to understand how completely plant-based cooking can occupy a culinary tradition, and how little it needs to announce the fact.
Italian & Pizza
Purezza Camden
Purezza opened in Camden in 2015 as the UK’s first plant-based pizzeria, and it remains the benchmark for vegan pizza in London. The kitchen developed its own brown rice mozzarella alongside raw cashew cheeses, ricotta-style cheese, and coconut cheese, and the pizza dough uses hemp flour in a family recipe from Italy.
Credit: HappyCow
The result is pizza that succeeds on its own terms rather than as a substitution: the bases are light and genuinely well-fermented, the toppings considered, and the combinations consistently extraordinary.
Manna
In Primrose Hill, Manna has been a landmark of London plant-based dining for over 47 years. It’s been fully vegan since 2008, focused on organic and seasonal produce, and operating with a warmth and community feeling that distinguishes it from newer, more design-conscious openings.
Credit: House & Garden
The iconic sausage and mash, made from fennel and pumpkin seed sausages with garlic potato, dill, and carrot mash, topped with leek and thyme jus, is the kind of dish that a restaurant earns through decades of refinement rather than a single creative moment. The Sunday roast draws devotees from across north London every week. Manna is one of the oldest and most genuinely beloved vegan restaurants in London, and its longevity is its own argument.
The Gate
The Gate in Hammersmith (with a second location in Angel) is one of London’s longest-standing vegetarian and vegan restaurants, built around a commitment to seasonal cooking, local sourcing, and a fully vegan wine list.
Credit: DesignMyNight
The menu is global and generous: a Chickpea Tagine with quinoa, herb salad, and pomegranate; a Wellington of roasted chestnuts, butternut, and parsnip in puff pastry; a Beetroot Cheeseburger with smoky tomato relish. The Gate has been doing this since 1989, and the kitchen’s relationship with its ingredients shows the depth of practice that decades of serious plant-based cooking produces.
London Classics & New Arrivals
The Spread Eagle
In Homerton, east London, The Spread Eagle holds the distinction of being London’s first fully vegan pub. It’s a category that did not exist before it was created in 2018. Every detail is plant-based, from the food and drink to the furniture.
Credit: The Spread Eagle
The seasonal menu, developed in collaboration with local producers and foragers, reimagines British pub classics: Pie, Mash and Liquor; Guinness Mushroom Stew with herb dumplings; Sticky Toffee Pudding; a Korean Burger with crispy mushrooms and gochujang sauce. The atmosphere is exactly what a good pub should be: welcoming, unfussy, and built for an evening rather than just a meal.
Tofu Vegan
Tofu Vegan on Upper Street in Islington is London’s most acclaimed vegan Chinese restaurant. It’s a kitchen that treats the full repertoire of Sichuan and Chinese cooking as its canvas and produces dishes of genuine flavour and precision.
Credit: The Good Food Guide
The “chicken” in chilli oil, the mapo tofu, and the vegan fish are consistently outstanding, and the menu is large enough to reward multiple visits. It is one of the vegan restaurants in London that most convincingly demonstrates how little plant-based cooking needs to announce its dietary credentials when the food is simply excellent.
Temple of Seitan
Temple of Seitan was London’s first fully vegan fried “chicken” restaurant and it’s a now widely imitated concept that it essentially invented for the British market. Now with locations in Camden and delivery across the UK, it produces seitan-based fried chicken with a crust, a juice, and a seasoning that has converted committed carnivores and inspired a generation of plant-based fast-food operations.
Credit: Temple of Seitan
The Temple Burger, made out of southern fried seitan with ranch mayo, lettuce, pickles, and seitan bacon, is the signature, and it remains one of the most satisfying plant-based fast food experiences in London.
Naïfs
In Peckham, Naïfs is a fully plant-based restaurant that gives Mediterranean cuisine an entirely vegan treatment. Just imagine stuffed sunchokes, marinated aubergines, and sharing plates that balance comfort and sophistication, in an atmosphere that captures the neighbourhood’s creative energy without self-consciously performing it.
Credit: The Nudge
It is one of the vegan restaurants in London that is most firmly a neighbourhood restaurant first and a vegan destination second, which in practice makes it both more relaxed and more rewarding.
Conclusion
The best vegan restaurants in London in 2025 and 2026 represent a dining scene that has moved, definitively, beyond the constraints that once limited plant-based cooking. A Michelin star, awarded to a fully plant-based kitchen for the first time in British history, is the clearest possible signal that what is happening here is not a trend but a genuine and permanent shift. The restaurants on this list, from the Shoreditch tasting counter where Kirk Haworth turns vegetables into something extraordinary, to the 35-year-old Soho institution that has never needed to explain itself, to the Caribbean kitchen in Islington serving the best jerk mushrooms in London, are not making accommodations for a dietary preference. They are making food that stands on its own terms, and doing it as well as anyone in the city.
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