Best Places to Eat in Vancouver as a Vegetarian

Vancouver has a reputation for a lot of things. The mountains. The rain. The cost of a one-bedroom apartment that will make you reconsider your life choices.

But the thing that does not get nearly enough attention outside the city is this: Vancouver’s plant-based dining scene is extraordinary. Not in a “for a city its size” way. In a genuinely, comparatively, by any standard you want to apply kind of way.

Local blog Vancouver with Love counted over 70 fully vegetarian and vegan restaurants operating in the city, and that number keeps climbing.

From Michelin-recognised share plates in Kitsilano to decades-old institutions that have been feeding the city’s plant-based community since before it was called plant-based, the options are varied enough, creative enough, and consistently good enough that the only real problem is deciding where to start.

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This list is where to start. Whether you are a Vancouver local looking for somewhere new, or you are visiting and want to eat well without spending three days researching, here is the current edit of the best vegetarian and vegan dining the city has to offer.

Best Places to Eat in Vancouver as a Vegetarian

Chickpea

Chickpea is Mediterranean-inspired, entirely vegan, counter service, and one of the most reliably excellent value meals in the city.

The seitan chick’n platter is the dish most associated with this place and the association is fully earned. Crispy, well-seasoned, served with the kind of generous sides that make the price feel like an extremely good deal.

The sabich sandwich and the roasted cauliflower bowl have the same qualities, bold spicing and ingredient combinations that feel considered rather than assembled.

Everything on the menu is vegan and almost everything can be made gluten-free. The dining room is communal and casual. There will sometimes be a line during peak hours and it moves quickly and is absolutely worth standing in.

This is the kind of neighbourhood restaurant that becomes a habit. Several people who live nowhere near Main Street have developed this habit anyway.

Two locations: 4298 Main Street, and 851 W Georgia Street.

Bellaggio Cafe

Bellaggio Cafe on Hornby Street is not a vegetrarian restaurant, but it is a great brunch spot with delicious avocado toast!

Smashed avocado, tomato confit, a handful of peppery arugula (and if you eat eggs/dairy, topped with goat cheese and poached egg) all on toasted bread that had the structural integrity to handle the situation.

The strawberry matcha was amazing. Plus, my latte with almond milk arrived exactly as a latte should, properly pulled espresso, the almond milk steamed to the right temperature rather than the lukewarm approximation you sometimes get when you ask for a dairy alternative at a place that is not entirely committed to the concept.

773 Hornby Street, downtown.

The General Sushi

The General Sushi on Main is a creative sushi restaurant with a fun, vintage atmosphere.

Not a full vegetarian restaurant, but they have tons of creative, and addictively delicious vegetarian sushi rolls.

general public main street - spicy mocktails

Folke, Kitsilano

Folke is the kind of restaurant that earns its reputation quietly and then keeps it.

Chef Colin Uyeda opened this fully vegan share-plates restaurant on West Broadway in Kitsilano and has since collected Michelin recognition three years running, a spot on Canada’s Best New Restaurants list, and the specific kind of loyal following that shows up on a Thursday night without needing a special occasion to justify it.

The menu is entirely plant-based and changes constantly based on what is locally available and seasonally honest. The tapioca dumplings with mushroom filling arrive chewy and deeply flavoured, sitting in a sauce that has the kind of complexity you want to spend time with.

The beet tartare with hazelnuts and house-made crackers is a study in texture and contrast that keeps you going back to the plate. The chickpea tofu with za’atar and zhoug is a dish that makes a case for itself entirely on its own terms.

If the menu feels overwhelming in the best way, order the tasting menu. It is called “Don’t Give a Folke, Let Us Cook,” which tells you everything you need to know about the spirit of the place.

Two more things worth knowing. The kitchen runs the food to your table themselves, which creates a genuinely different energy between the people cooking and the people eating. And there is no tipping because gratuity is built into the pricing.

2585 West Broadway, Kitsilano.

The Acorn, Main Street

The Acorn has been one of Vancouver’s most respected vegetarian restaurants since 2012 and it has earned that standing through the straightforward mechanism of cooking exceptionally well for a very long time.

The room on Main Street is intimate and warm, with exposed brick, an open kitchen, and the kind of lighting that makes a weeknight dinner feel like it was worth dressing for. The menu is creative and seasonal, built around local sourcing and a genuine commitment to making vegetables the focus rather than the footnote.

The beer-battered cauliflower is a permanent fixture and the kind of dish that inspires the specific loyalty of something people order every single time they visit. The halloumi with za’atar has the same energy. The seasonal tasting menus change with the kitchen’s access to what is growing locally, which means every visit has the potential to be genuinely different from the last.

Book ahead for weekend evenings. The room is small and fills up consistently, which is its own kind of endorsement.

3995 Main Street.

COFU, Multiple Locations Including Chinatown

COFU makes entirely plant-based pressed sushi with a level of visual intention that makes the food feel like an event before you have taken a single bite.

The pressed sushi is layered and precise, arriving looking like something that took considerably more thought than most things you will eat this week, and then tasting like it too. The portobello and the plant-based tuna mayo are standout pieces on the omakase platter, which is sixteen pieces of their rotating selection and the correct way to experience the menu if this is your first visit.

The protein situation is handled with genuine skill, tofu and plant-based meats seasoned and textured in a way that holds up to the quality of the sushi rice and the visual care of the presentation. Nothing here feels like a compromise. It feels like a kitchen that has thought carefully about every component.

In 2025 COFU opened a Chinatown location offering an 18-course tasting menu made entirely from plants. This is a special occasion meal in the best sense of the phrase.

Multiple locations including Chinatown.

Do Chay, Commercial Drive

Vietnamese cuisine has a long and rich tradition of plant-based cooking and Do Chay is the place in Vancouver that honours that tradition with both respect and genuine creativity.

The menu is fully vegan and reads like a kitchen that is genuinely enthusiastic about the cuisine rather than simply executing it competently. The spicy curry noodle bowls have depth and heat in the right proportions. The creative vegan fish dishes are the kind of thing that rewards ordering with curiosity. The Viet Milk Coffee has developed its own following among people who have tried it once and then found themselves back on Commercial Drive sooner than planned.

The neighborhood itself is worth noting. Commercial Drive has a concentration of excellent vegan and vegetarian spots that makes the street worth an extended visit rather than a single stop, and Do Chay anchors that stretch of it with the kind of consistent quality that keeps a loyal regular clientele coming back.

1414 Commercial Drive.

The Naam, Kitsilano

The Naam has been in Kitsilano since the late 1960s, which makes it not just Vancouver’s oldest vegetarian restaurant but a piece of the city’s history that happens to still be making excellent food.

The menu leans into hearty, comfort-forward cooking with Tex-Mex influences and the kind of portions that reflect decades of understanding exactly what its community comes for.

Nachos, tacos, breakfast plates built for genuine appetite rather than aesthetic minimalism. Most of the menu is vegan or easily made so. The dragon bowl, a long-standing menu fixture, has the kind of loyal following that only comes from being genuinely good for a very long time.

The Naam operates with the specific warmth of a place that has been a community anchor for over fifty years and knows it. It is relaxed, unpretentious, and entirely consistent in the best way.

2724 West 4th Avenue, Kitsilano

MeeT on Main

MeeT is the answer to the logistical challenge of organizing a dinner where everyone at the table has different dietary commitments and you want nobody to feel like they are eating the compromise option.

The menu is built around plant-based proteins and meat substitutes used to create the kind of comfort food, burgers, loaded dishes, satisfying crowd-pleasers, that works for everyone without asking anyone to settle.

The kitchen handles its proteins with skill and the result is a restaurant that draws a genuinely mixed crowd of dedicated vegans and people who simply want a good meal and are not particularly concerned about what is or is not in it.

4288 Main Street.

A Few Practical Notes Before You Go

Vancouver’s plant-based dining scene is concentrated but spread across distinct neighbourhoods. Main Street, Kitsilano, and Commercial Drive are the three areas with the highest density of excellent options, and all three reward a longer visit than just the one restaurant you came for.

Book ahead for Folke and The Acorn especially. Both rooms are small and both fill up on any evening worth going out.

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