It can sometimes be hard going out to eat as a vegetarian or vegan, but luckily, Portland is a city filled with world-class dining, and many of those options put plenty of thought into what to offer their veggie-friendly patrons.
We’re highlighting some of the best options for eating out as a vegan or vegetarian, including options with specific plant-based menus, local food trucks, and even some outstanding one-off menu items you can find around the city.
Featured Vegan / Vegetarian Menus
Broken Arrow prides itself on delicious, locally and responsibly sourced small plates that rotate frequently, representing the bounties of the current season, but they are always sure to take care of their vegetarian friends.
For a high-quality, fresh taste of truly local cuisine, this is one that cannot be skipped, and the frequent menu changes will keep giving you reasons to go back!
551 Congress St, Portland, ME 04101, USA Nosh Kitchen Bar
Nosh Kitchen and Bar has upped its vegetarian game recently, and is certainly worth a visit. “Steak” is not often a word in a vegetarian or vegan’s vocabulary, but the Tofu Steak at Nosh Kitchen Bar makes for an amazing entrée that is hard to find elsewhere.
Served with a Horseradish mash, mushroom confit, and crispy onion strips, this one-of-a-kind vegetarian meal can also be made vegan upon request. Add in Nosh’s flavor dusted fries for the ultimate chef’s kiss.
241 Commercial St, Portland, ME 04101, USA $3 Deweys
$3 Deweys
Don’t sleep on the amazing vegan and vegetarian menu offered at $3 Dollar Deweys. If you and your friends are looking to have some drinks and get some delicious pub-style food, this may be your best choice in town.
Menu items include BBQ Jackfruit tacos, Vegan Nachos, a Vegan Burger made by local vegetarian food makers Veggie Life, and many more delicious options. For a long list of veggie-friendly options, and an even longer beer list, $3 Deweys is a great choice.
Vegan/Vegetarian Menus
Asmara is one of the most unique dining options you’ll find in Portland, serving up Eritrean cuisine, with plenty of vegan options to boot.
Dishes are typically served family style, and served on a large piece of moist, spongy, flat bread called injera. The bread is topped with your choice of entrée, and Asmara has a full vegetarian menu with different veggie and sauce options to top your injera, with both mild and spicy options.
Bring some friends and share on this unique communal dining experience!
Sometimes, there is simply nothing that satisfies quite like a grilled cheese – we get it.
Cheese Louise has what qualifies as nothing short of artisan grilled cheese sandwiches, and they do not leave the vegetarians and vegans behind. I recommend the No Porkin’ Way, a veggie-friendly take on their BBQ pulled pork sandwich, that subs in BBQ shredded sweet potatoes.
Vegans – any of their sandwiches can be substituted for vegan cheese at no extra cost!
Portland is known globally for its world-class cuisine, and, like I said earlier, you don’t have to be a carnivore to take part in some of the city’s finest dining establishments.
Evo Kitchen & Bar is one of Portland’s highest rated restaurants, and its Mediterranean cuisine makes for a very veggie-friendly dining experience. Given the nature of Evo’s process, menus are revised daily, but you can always expect an exciting Vegetable section featuring both vegan and vegetarian options you can sink your teeth into.
One of the newer establishments on the list, The Friendly Toast fills a hole in Portland’s food scene, providing a breakfast joint with lots of seating and menu options, for both carnivores and herbivores alike.
As with most breakfast spots, you’ll have an easier time as a vegetarian than as a vegan (those eggs will get you every time), but don’t skip out of the Vegan Breakfast Burrito with tofu, black beans, vegan cheese, vegan sausage, avocado-cilantro sauce and more!
While The Friendly Toast is mostly popular as a breakfast spot, don’t skip out on the lunch either! The Vegan Can’t Banh Mi Love wrap is definitely worth coming back for.
Just because you do not eat dairy does not mean you should be excluded from some of the best desserts Portland has to offer!
Gorgeous Gelato offers authentic Italian gelato made fresh daily with no emulsifiers, preservatives, or artifical colors or flavors, and they always whip up some special flavors for their vegan friends.
What’s on the menu can change daily, but some vegan flavors include blackberry, cinnamon, and dark chocolate gelatos.
The Great Lost Bear has been a Portland staple since it opened in 1979, and with its “Carnivores Beware” menu, it’s a great spot for the veggie-eaters as well.
This one is certainly more vegetarian than vegan friendly, but if you’re looking for a sizeable meat-free menu, big beer list, and the ability to serve large parties, this is a great stop.
The one everyone knew was coming: The Green Elephant is another one of Portland’s highest rated restaurants, all while serving an entirely meat-free menu. For a very long time, this Asian-fusion bistro held Portland’s number one spot on Yelp, and is still in the top 10, years into the city’s boom into the world class foodie scene.
Drawing inspiration from Thailand, Malaysia, Japan, China and India, The Green Elephant creates unique dishes that even the most loyal carnivores can enjoy. The extensive menu is almost entirely vegan by default, and the few dishes that are not can be made vegan upon request, simply by removing egg.
If you are a vegetarian or vegan in Portland, and you haven’t hit this staple yet, you need change that ASAP.
LB Kitchen describes itself as a “healthy-ish cafe,” offering both tasty salads and bowls, as well as baked goods, and they have plenty of vegan and vegetarian options for a quick, healthy lunch for those on the go.
If you haven’t been to LB Kitchen before, now is the perfect time! They just opened at their new location, 255 Congress Street. The owners say this new space is their dream come true, giving them the café, retail, grab & go location they always hoped for.
Mi Sen Noodle Bar prides itself on authentic Thai cuisine, which (like most Asian cuisine) offers many opportunities for veggie-friendly dishes.
Opened in 2013, Mi Sen is a family-owned-and-operated business with all the Thai staples, such as Thai Curry, or Pad Thai (ask for no egg to make it vegan!), but it also has unique dishes you’ll struggle to find elsewhere, such as Thai Fries or the Chive Cakes (pictured here).
Monte’s Fine Foods on Washington Ave offers a high quality, locally sourced classic Italian pizza shop menu, featuring salads, sandwiches, and, of course, pizza! No matter what section of the menu you’re feeling, you’ll have some great vegan-friendly options, like their Vegan Italian, Roman Salad with tempeh, or several vegan pizza options.
Current specialty pizzas include their “Winter Veggie,” which features a winter squash puree, shaved Brussels, boozy prune and vegan ricotta.
When it comes to vegan street food, it’s hard to beat a classic falafel sandwich in pita, and there’s no better spot in Portland for that than Nura Falafel and Hummus.
Graduating from the Falafel Mafia food truck, Nura offers a veggie-heavy menu featuring falafel pockets, hummus bowls, and salads for a grab-and-go lunch that just can’t be beat. If you’re not feeling falafel, try their Mushroom Shawarma Pocket, with roasted oyster mushrooms in their classic pita pocket.
Mediterranean street food doesn’t get any better than this!
Clearly Mediterranean is, in general, a great option for vegan and vegetarian-friendly dining, but if you’re not quite looking for fine dining, and you’re not quite looking for street food, Olive Café may be your best option for something in-between.
Offering an extensive menu of kabobs, mezza, gyros and more, Olive Café has a cozy bistro atmosphere. For a different take on Mediterranean – try their thin crust pizza!
If you’re looking for a grab-and-go breakfast in Portland, it’s hard to beat Ohno Café. Located in the West End, Ohno has some great options for potentially the hardest meal of the day for vegans.
#3 features a vegan-friendly hummus, tomato, spinach and olive oil on a bialy. The #6 is a vegetarian bialy with cream cheese, spinach, tomato, cucumber, red onion, and sriracha.
Looking for more? Here’s a pro tip: check out the “Make your Own” section when ordering online. You’ll find way more options to create your own vegan or vegetarian-friendly breakfast sandwiches, featuring possibilities like soy sausage, avocado, and plenty of other fixings you won’t find on the standard menu.
Don’t sleep on their lunch menu either. They have a delicious veggie burger, a Hummus sandwich, and often have veggie-friendly specials.
Pom’s Thai Taste Restaurant & Noodle House offers a robust menu, featuring over 100 items, many of which can be made, or are created intentionally to be vegan or vegetarian.
While most Asian cuisine offers the ability for tofu as a protein, Pom’s Thai Taste also offers soy chicken nuggets for a different and delicious option to your Pad Thai, curry, or stiry fry. They even offer the soy chicken nugget bites as a standalone appetizer with a sweet & spicy chili sauce.
Chinese is a great go-to for any vegan or vegetarian but what makes Sichuan Kitchen stand out is their unique and creative recipes you’d be hard-pressed to find anywhere else, like a mushroom salad, or mapo tofu, a pork dish that can easily be made vegan with green leeks for a perfect winter dish. Their veggie buns also stuffed with a spicy seaweed salad make for a standout, shareable appetizer.
Sometimes the only thing that will satisfy those lunchtime cravings is a sandwich, and Sisters Gourmet Deli has some great veggie-friendly options.
The go-to menu item for vegetarians is a Caprese-style sandwich called the Fredge, but you can make any sandwich vegetarian by subbing tempeh for meat. They love their vegan friends too – just ask for no cheese on your order!
Portland is a pretty great place to be a vegan, as we have one of the top 10 highest rated vegan ice cream shops across the entire globe. Sticky Sweet was founded by two local sisters on a mission to bring you the best plant-based ice cream, using only the highest-quality ingredients.
Their ice cream consists of a blend of plants, such as cashews and coconuts, churned into a creamy perfection. Vegan or not, their goal is that once you taste their ice cream – you’ll forget all about dairy.
Food Trucks
SAO Cooks & Catering provides garden fresh, plant-based gourmet food in the form of food cart pop-ups and catered experiences. They whip up some amazing, high-quality food wherever they go such as vegan cornbread, cashew corn chowder, spinach pinwheels and so much more. Keep an eye on their Instagram to see what they have going on at any given time.
Totally Awesome Vegan Food Truck has long been a superstar on Portland’s food truck scene, not to mention in Portland Old Port’s Best of Awards, winning Best Chef (2022, 2021), Best Veggie Burger (2022), and Best Food Truck (2021, 2019). With accolades like that, and a 100% vegan menu, this is one that absolutely cannot be missed.
You can try their award-winning veggie burgers weekdays and Saturdays when they server their “Rad Lunch” menu, but definitely don’t skip out on their 420 Brunch Menu, served Sundays only, featuring an absolute highlight: The Brekky Entelechy “The Breakfast Sandwich of the Gods.” Served on a grilled pretzel bun, this just may be the best vegan breakfast option in town. Add in some maple-chipotle tots, and your Sunday is off to a great start.
Find out where they are by following their Instagram.
Honorable Mentions (Dishes)
Unfortunately, you still can’t count on every single spot having the most robust vegan or vegetarian menu, but that doesn’t mean you can’t find amazing one-off dishes at these locations. We wanted to give some credit to some of those great dishes here:
- Banh Appetit – Dau Hu (Fried Tofu) Banh Mi (Vegan OR Vegetarian)
- Empire Chinese Kitchen – Chive Shitake Dumplings (Vegan)
- Forage Market – Vegan Breakfast Sandwich on a wood-fired bagel
- Full Turn – Rotating menu every 10 weeks. Always offer vegetarian option.
Did we miss one? DM us on Instagram @portlandoldport, or email us at [email protected].
