Los Angeles is truly a vegan paradise. It’s right up there next to New York City as the most vegan-friendly city in the country. (Of course, Portland is high on that list too.) You can spend several days hopping from one vegan restaurant to another, and you’ll still have barely even covered LA’s vegan scene.

On my last visit, I stayed with a friend at the Miracle Mile, not far from Fairfax District, Melrose, and West Hollywood, where many of the hottest vegan restaurants are located. It is possible to get around LA without a car and even explore entirely on foot like I did for a good portion of my visit. It had been a while since I visited LA, and while I do have some favorites, like Crossroads Kitchen, I was eager to explore the newer restaurants.

If you find this list of vegan restaurants in LA helpful or have a tip for my next trip to LA, let me know in the comments below. You can also find me on Instagram @waz.wu for more vegan restaurant features.

Vegan Dining in Los Angeles

What are your favorite vegan restaurants in LA?

Extra Market Inc

Located in the Fairfax District, Extra Market is perfect for a vegan comfort foods lunch. The two of us shared the Philly cheesesteak and chopped cheese — one sandwich per person will leave you feeling full, but not stuffed. Both subs were juicy and flavorful with soft bread to hold everything together. They also offer breakfast sandwiches, burgers, and Frito pies.

Wanderlust Creamery

Although Wanderlust Creamery is not entirely vegan, the dairy-free, coconut-based scoops in unique flavors inspired from all over the world are not to be missed. A few vegan flavors that caught my eye are sticky rice mango, passionfruit cacao, and yuzu creamsicle. Wanderlust has several locations all over California, and you might spot them at events and markets too.

Avant Garden Bistro

At Avant Garden Bistro — the new-ish west coast location of a favorite from my NYC days — you’ll find a satisfying menu of satisfying veggie-ladden toasts, hot and cold plates, and pasta dishes. A true celebration of vegetables.

What makes the Melrose location extra special though is the lush enchanted garden setting, complete with chandeliers and statues, tucked away behind a narrow entry stairway. If you prefer to sit inside, you’ll find a decadent French bistro meets cabaret-esque dining room with plush velvet booths. No surprise this magical space comes from the mind of a set designer.

If you don’t order a toast at Avant Garden, you’re doing it wrong. This one arrived piled high with earthy creminis, walnuts purée, red grapes, and Calabrian chilis. The roasted carrots with pistachio chermula (similar to chimichurri), spring onion soubise, and blood sorrel was a knockout, as well. Oh, and the Bush Sunflower is basically an Italian biscotti in cocktail form.

Avant Garden has closed its Los Angeles location. Overthrow Hospitality opened Ubuntu, a vegan West African restaurant, in the Melrose space.

Nics on Beverly

Nics on Beverly describes itself as “California cuisine serving a little bit of everything you’d hope to find on a Los Angeles menu,” which is fitting as the menu ranges from morel risotto to breakfast tacos to cast iron roasted tofu. I had tough time deciding what to order because everything looks and sounds fantastic. (This was also our second restaurant for the evening.)

We nibbled on the avocado crispy rice with ponzu, citrus, and cilantro before moving on to the decadent leek-mushroom-black truffle bianca with fluffy-on-the-inside crust and signature Detroit style cronchy edges. The beautiful courtyard was adorned with hanging lights and lush foilage, but I was happier sitting inside, where it was less crowded and noisy, at a comfy table with a view of the bar.

Pura Vita

For incredible all vegan Italian dining, visit Pura Vita. At the West Hollywood location, you can order from both the pasta shop and pizzeria menus. The linguine was the winner, but you can’t go wrong with ordering a few plates to share. We shared the baked cashew ricotta with grilled ciabatta, Caesar salad, lasagna (I have not stopped thinking about this since first trying it at Seed Food & Wine), and knockout linguine di mare with king oyster mushroom scallops.

Vromage

Tucked away in a West Hollywood strip mall, Vromage is a vegan cheese shop offering salads, sandwiches, and cheese plates — all made with their house organic nut and seed-based cheeses. We got to chat with owner Youssef Fakhouri, who has been making vegan cheese since 2009, and picked out a couple cheeses from the deli to take home to create our own cheese board.

Hot Tongue Pizza

Venturing out to Silver Lake involved braving some traffic, but the New York style slices at Hot Tongue were totally worth it. In fact, I still think about this pizza regularly. We tried the pepperoni, buffalo, and classic thin slices on this visit. The menu includes square pies, pastas, and salads too.

Portland’s Boxcar Pizza recommended that I check out Hot Tongue Pizza while in LA, and it was such a fun coincidence that the staff at Hot Tongue were Boxcar t-shirts. Pizza buddies 4eva.

De Buena Planta

At De Buena Planta in Silver Lake, the menu is vegetarian with many vegan items. We got there in time for happy hour and enjoyed spicy watermelon mezcalitas, vegan chicharones, and tacos dorados with potatoes and pecan chorizo on the tropical patio. I was excited to try the cashew and carrot queso, but unfortunately, it was a miss that day.

Doomies

Doomie’s and Doomie’s NextMex are right next to each other, so you can have your pick of vegan comfort foods: fried chicken, BBQ pulled pork sandwiches, deep fried Oreos, quesadillas, wet burritos, and more. After a night of bar hopping, we made our way here for for late night tacos and flautas. Lots of other folks had the same idea.

Monty’s Good Burger

It’s been a few years since I first tried Monty’s Good Burger at Eat Drink Vegan in 2018, but it’s as good as I remembered. Plus, the burger chain now has several shops with a retro diner vibe, neon signs, and iconic image of Monty chowing down on a burger. I got the classic single cheeseburger and a Travis Barker’s oat matcha latte shake. Both were great, but the double cheeseburger and a mini half-sized shake might have been a better move. The Monty Meal chicken tenders are on my list for a future visit.

Crossroads Kitchen

There’s nothing quite like Crossroads Kitchen. You’ll find delicious and satisfying dishes that will impress even the biggest skeptics of vegan cuisine. For vegans, this is a dining destination you don’t want to miss.

Crossroads offers seasonal tasting menus, but we ordered a la carte to create our own decadent dinner for two: artichoke oysters with artichoke purée, crispy oyster mushrooms, bearnaise, kelp caviar; baby beet salad, shaved apples, feta, candied walnuts, balsamic, frisée; Rockefeller style baked mushroom scallops; spaghetti carbonara of my dreams with a silky tomato bearnaise egg yolk and smoky mushroom pancetta; pear mousse with port sorbet and pecan crumble.

The stylish dining room is adorned white tablecloths and chandeliers, but if you sit outside, you’ll get to people watch. This is also a vegan celebrity hot spot so you never know who you might see there.

Chaumont Vegan

This darling bakery in Beverly Hills is what vegan pastry dreams are made of. It’s located next to the regular version of Chaumont, but the vegan shop was much busier when I visited. I wanted to order so many things, but we landed on a beautiful blackberry tart and savory ham and cheese croissant. Vegan croissants aren’t easy to come by, so you definitely need to order one when you visit!

Smorgasburg LA

Every Sunday, nearly 100 vendors gather in ROW DTLA for the largest open air market. When I visited, I dug into Senoreata’s flaky picadillo meat pies, Cena Vegan’s barbacoa taco, Mort and Betty’s deli sampler with carrot lox and mushroom pastrami, and Man Eating Plant’s beer battered fried shroom bao. There were many more vegan vendors, which I didn’t get a chance to try. I spotted Avocadamama, Bivrit, Donut Friend, Say It Ain’t So, Plantae Bar, and Madame Shugah there as well.

The Plant Lab

The Plant Lab has one of the most impressive vegan sushi menus I’ve come across. Their rolls are made with veggies and mushrooms, as well as vegan seafood like salmon, snowcrab, and yellowtail. We shared the Einstein roll, which was a bit on the heavy side with fried scallop, crispy onions, *and* cream cheese. The spicy miso ramen is fantastic with a rich, flavorful broth and plenty of toppings.

The West Hollywood brick and mortar has now closed; The Plant Lab has resumed operating solely as a food truck around Los Angeles.

Sugar Taco

Mr Charlie’s

The last stop of my LA trip was Mr Charlie’s aka the #VeganMcDonalds that’s been making the rounds on the interwebs. What’s in the Frowny Meal? Not A Cheeseburger with an Impossible patty that’s juicier than what I remember of McD’s, a melty vegan cheese slice, and well greased bun; crispy chicken-like morsels that are Not Chicken Nuggets; a vegan rendition of the iconic fries; and a classic Coke.

Beyond the fun concept, the fast food joint aims to support its community by teaming up with LA’s Dream Center to provide employment to people experiencing houselessness or transitioning out of incarceration.