When thinking of New York City’s most iconic foods, most minds instantly go to a chopped cheese or bacon, egg, and cheese from the bodega on the corner, a fluffy bagel with lox, or meaty pastrami on rye. But the city is many things, and one of them is a mecca for vegetarian dining. There have been pockets of vegetable-forward restaurants since the ‘70s, with places like the much-loved, but long-gone, Angelica Kitchen and Pure Food and Wine. Those forerunners birthed a movement because today, even classically carnivorous steakhouses and burger joints cater to diners who avoid meat, but there are also enough places dedicated entirely to vegetarians.
If you’re looking for somewhere where you’ll have no shortage of choices, you’re in luck because the city is awash with exclusively vegetarian restaurants. They range from those that specialize in ultra spicy Szechuan dry pots to seven-course tasting menus. Here are some of our top recommendations where everyone from a diehard carnivore to vegan (find our vegan-only roundup here) can enjoy.
Read our complete New York City guide here, which includes:
Head to Prospect Heights to sample some of the city’s best Ethiopian, which just so happens to be vegan. Husband and wife team Romeo and Milka Regalli opened their spot in 2020 to bring their family’s recipes to the neighborhood. They’ve taken a modern and meat-free approach to the cuisine. Expect dishes like injera nachos topped with a housemade berbere cheese sauce, black beans, guacamole, and pico de gallo as well as tibs, normally made with stir-fried meat, but here made from either mushrooms or seitan. Food here is best shared, but if you’re not with a group, get a sampling of it all with one of their platters that offer a handful of stews and stir-fries accompanied by rice or injera, the spongy flatbread made from teff flour that’s naturally gluten-free.
If you’re a lover of veggie burgers—we’re not talking the Impossible kind either, but the kind made with real vegetables—this is the place for you. In 2015, Brooks Hedley, a former fine-dining pastry chef, traded it all in to open his much-loved burger shack that was originally housed in a tiny hole in the wall on 9th street. It was an instant hit, drawing lines for its platonic-ideal burgers, burnt broccoli salad, and some of the city’s best gelato. It has since moved around the corner to a much bigger restaurant with ample seating on Avenue A, and the menu has expanded to present all sorts of farmer’s market vegetables in satisfying, innovative ways. No meal at Superiority Burger would be complete without its namesake burger—a house-made patty made from a vegetable, quinoa, and chickpea blend that comes topped with shredded lettuce, ketchup, pickles and cheese (vegan or not). Don’t overlook anything made with yuba, either, or whatever quirky sides Brooks and the team are making on the day, as well as the dessert. The cakes are legendary, and almost always vegan, as is most of the menu.
Canadian chef Amanda Cohen has been operating her Lower East Side restaurant since 2008. It originally occupied a tiny 18-seat sliver of a space in the East Village, but she’s since moved to Allen Street and has been thriving there for a decade. The restaurant is the only Michelin-starred vegetarian restaurant in the city. Her five-course tasting menu is vegetarian by default, can easily be made vegan by request, and changes quarterly with the seasons. On each of the menus, one can expect to find elevated, yet playful dishes like tomato twinkies filled with smoked feta cheese and corn crepes with seaweed caviar and eggplant oysters. You may finish with mousse made from miso-glazed eggplant served in a chocolate shell—yes, you’ll even find vegetables in dessert, and it works. It’s serious food that doesn’t take itself too seriously.
