Restaurants I’ve eaten at

Soft recommendations, unless noted.

= vegan, = vegetarian

UK·France·USA

UK

Cambridge

  • Giggling Squid
    • Very cool interior, reasonable prices, vegan pad thai decent. Spring rolls not great
  • Gardi’s
    • Excellent hot & crispy chips with fluffy insides. Hidden-away upstairs seating area. Radio 4 on; listened to Archers for first time in ages
  • Aromi
    • Cheap & tasty foccacia pizzas.

London

  • Tofu Vegan
    • Am a fan of most things on the menu.
  • Gauthier Soho
    • Food is clearly excellent, and really interesting, but getting the full set menu takes an extremely long time – ~3.5h in the restaurant. And 22:30 is getting towards when I want to be going to bed, not finishing my dessert.
  • Holy Carrot
    • Similar concept to Gauthier of well-crafted vegetable-based veggie food, but more much relaxed atmosphere.
  • Studio Gauthier
    • The most recent time I went there, the service was disappointingly inattentive & slow. Food is generally good, but rather small portions (especially with the “3d printed steak”)
  • Taro Soho
    • Very filling veg bento box, tasty too (£18 so a bit expensive though). Quite busy and one slightly rude waiter.
  • Dishoom
    • Cool interior, food fine but nothing special for me
  • Itadakizen
    • Their aubergine dishes were impressively soft, almost melt-in-the-mouth, though I felt like the plates we had should’ve been served hotter – lots felt lukewarm (but maybe this is customary) .
  • Taste of Chongqing
    • OK vegan options, works well for large groups (went for an EV meetup, with Fuchsia Dunlop ordering for us!)
  • Champor Champor
    • Good range of vegan mains & starters. Some dishes were great, others (e.g. plantains, papaya) were meh. Service mediocre and the restaurant has bad acoustics so very hard to hear: tables really packed together. <2min from London Bridge station, so very convenient, but I reckon most of the time I’d go to Mallow instead
  • Plants of Roselyn
    • Thai, also right next to LBG. Small in a nice way; good service. The fried mushrooms starter is excellent. Rest of the menu fairly good but not spectacular.
  • Unity Diner
    • Abysmally slow but great vegan “fast” food
  • Persepolis
    • A restaurant that (in décor) feels like a cross between an ethnic supermarket, the home of habitual hoarder, and a greasy spoon café, in a very homely and whimsy way. Very tasty food, the feast set menu just keeps coming
  • Jam Delish
    • Somewhat soulless interior. A wide variety of faux meat (& fish), almost all of it very tasty. Would skip goat stew though.
  • Vegan Yes
    • Fine; not that special. Cool concept of Korean x Italian fusion and friendly proprietor. (My mum gave a huge anti-recommendation, but I didn’t think it was actively bad)
  • Merkamo
    • Very prettily-presented, nice Ethiopian food
  • Dauns
    • Really tasty smørrebrød (tofu scramble fish), but I feel overly slow service for a cafe
  • Bento Bab
    • Good atmosphere and sizzling bibimbap
  • Mallow
  • Mildred’s
  • The Gate
  • Vantra
  • Japan Centre

Oxford

  • La Cucina
    • Old-fashioned décor in a nice way; had a decent vegan menu
  • Chiang Mai Kitchen
    • Surprisingly cheap mains, good veggie menu
  • The Gardeners Arms
    • Very cosy pub, has nice outdoor area around the back! Just quite out of the way if you’re not in Jericho. Don’t confuse for the other nearby Gardeners Arms (the veggie one is on Plantation Road)
  • Hall at Merton
    • Come for lunch & get unlimited salad/fruit/bread/soup; early suppers are disappointing
  • Edamame
    • Seems overrated to me and I don’t get why people queue outside for 15-30min. Veg options fine but not spectacular, and portion sizes somewhat small for the price
  • Spiced Roots
    • Two tasty vegan mains on the menu plus various starters. Quite liked the afrobeats(?) music playing too.
  • Pan Pan
  • Three Thousand Restaurant
    • Hole-in-the-wall place, chickpea noodles are more filling than you’d expect
  • Green Routes
    • Pancakes too sweet for my liking but savoury stuff is very good; might have to wait a while for table though
  • Taste Tibet
  • Café Orient
    • Excellent service; especially recommend the fried aubergine
  • Red Star
    • Fast, but food is just fine
  • Gloucester Green
    • Ceylon Spicy is especially good – they do dosa, kothu roti, and curries
  • Covered Market
    • Georgina’s for meze; Rozana’s for wraps (a long line but it moves fairly quickly); Lulu’s is more of a sit-down place, Ethiopian
  • Kibou
    • Japanese place. Expensive but nice atmosphere
  • Al-Andalus
    • Quite slow & understaffed / inattentive service, but decent tapas. Tables near the toilets are very smelly, so avoid
  • Handlebars Café
    • Tasty brunch, often a long queue though

Elsewhere

  • Cafe Vegu, Lewes

France

Paris

  • Bululu Arepera
    • Cheap and tasty, can leave out cheese and have veggie option with plantains + beans + avocado
  • P1 Bouche
    • Vegan sandwich and nice tarts (courgette or tomato)
  • Gamine Bakeshop
    • Didn’t have any specifically vegan things but made nice sandwiches to order
  • L’atelier sando
    • Japanese rice bowls and sandwiches, good fried tofu
  • La cantine de Sam
    • Filling salad bowl (“le healthy”)
  • Bloom Sushi
    • Delicious sushi. Pretty expensive though, was €60pp (for more than enough food)

USA

Berkeley / Oakland

  • The Butcher’s Son
    • All vegan, very nice outdoor seating area. $15 for a sandwich feels expensive to me but it was filling (for a lunch, would be insufficient for dinner)
  • Thai Basil; Bear’s Ramen House (both in Durant Ave food court)
    • Tasty, one meal is enough food for two days’ lunches. Have had aubergine & tofu at Thai place twice now
  • Blondie’s Pizza
    • Vegan cheese is pretty good
  • Golden Lotus
    • All vegan but would not recommend, slow service and food about average

San Francisco

  • Cha-Ya
    • All-vegan Japanese place. Small portions but I had a nice tempura noodle soup
  • Papalote
    • Cheap, quick, filling burritos. Several vegan options. Didn’t like the soyrizo much but tofu mole with refried beans was great. And you get nacho chips in the bag too!
  • Tiya
    • Very fancy and correspondingly expensive Indian food, lots of “experiences” on their tasting menu (which were nice & interesting). From this experience, I feel like fine dining is overrated. But it’s not worse than a cheaper place so I guess people with the money might as well.
  • Wildseed
    • All-vegan, absurdly priced $12 cookie but it was tasty & would return. Was interesting looking at the crowd there and trying to figure out what kinds of people they were (I didn’t manage to; I find it hard to place Americans socio-culturally)
  • Peacock Pansy
    • Deliciously sugary & fat-laden French toast

New York

  • Tacombi
    • Cool warehouse vibes, fairly reasonable prices, tasty esquitas
  • Spicy Moon
    • All-vegan dim sum & noodles. Extremely fast service, very pink colour scheme & lots of loud 2010s pop
  • Cafe Himalaya
    • Somewhat small portions, but decent selection of vegan options
  • V-Nam Cafe
    • Vegan pho with tofu, generously-sized
  • Pop’s Bagels Nolita
  • Le Botaniste
    • Quite bougie, lots of Le Creuset dishes bubbling away on an induction hob & wooden panelling everywhere. But also it’s like a salad bowl style shop in terms of getting your food at the counter
  • Il laboratorio del gelato
    • Really good lychee sorbet (& others)
  • Van Leeuwen ice cream
    • Whacky flavours, thought sadly mostly sold out
  • Vegan Grill
    • Cheap and lots of options, basically a kebab shop and that kind of quality
  • Bite
    • Kiosk-in-the-wall, cheap but a bit greasy, has some vegan bakes too
  • Xi’an Famous Foods
    • Cold skin noodles great on a hot day, super cheap
  • Planta Queen
    • Teeny-tiny sushi portions, I think you’d need to spend like $80 on food to actually be full for dinner. But definitely interesting to try and loads to choose from; fast service (can eat at the bar)
  • Wild Ginger
    • Felt like an old-school Chinese restaurant with lots of wall decorations, handwritten corrections to the menu. Lots of options but food somewhat too sweet
  • Delice & Sarrasin
    • Impressive to make an all-vegan menu of French cuisine. I wouldn’t choose the steak options but my “seafood” tagliatelle was good. Yummy crepes.
  • Chakra
    • Secret tasting menu!
  • Seibab Thai
    • Good value lunch menu
  • chloe.
    • Slow, a more mediocre version of Eatwell in Beckenham
  • Jajaja Mexicana
    • Yummy (& fatty) churros. Dim orange lighting, kind of place you’d go for a date
  • Red Bamboo
    • Had sizzling “steak”, was fine
  • Woorjip
    • Great for lunch, canteen-style
  • Dialogue coffee
    • Pretty flowers, plays lots of Lana, all vegan pastries!
  • Veggie Castle II
    • No seating and not really air-conditioned, but good buffet-style takeaway on the way to JFK.