The best places to eat in Dublin for vegetarians and vegans - cafés, street food and fast food

Ronan Doyle
3 days ago
7 min read

Following on from our recent roundup of all the best sit-down options for Dublin’s veggies and vegans, it’s time to take stock of the more casual bakery, café, takeaway and on-the-go options around. While plenty of specialty spots have folded over the last few years, increasingly more places are waking up to the need to offer more than mere afterthought options to the city’s meat and dairy-free eaters. Here’s our pick of the best...

*Anywhere that caters particularly well for vegans has a (V) next to it*

Cafés

Twist Bakery, Temple Bar (V)

Vegan baker Marija Lacic recently closed up her home delivery Cake My Day business with promises of bigger things to come – it doesn’t get much bigger than prime real estate in Temple Bar. Brand new bakery Twist has all the usual croissants, focaccias and breads, alongside far fancier fare like coffee opera and matcha marble cakes – every last bit of it vegan. There’s a major focus on GF treats too.

Tang, various locations (V)

Tang has long been a location of choice for veggies and vegans to lunch and brunch to their hearts’ content, between the growing number of outposts and its Middle Eastern-influenced plates. The hummus here is some of the best around, while their smart salad selections and broad bakery counters make special effort to give vegans a real choice – they even do plant-based pancakes. Their Thursday and Friday night dinners in the Abbey Street branch are a top tip for value.

Honest to Goodness, Liberties

We could have cried on tasting the properly-seasoned side salads at Honest to Goodness – bland handfuls of loose leaves begone! – so just imagine how good their full bowls can be. The Cobb and (vegan) Kitchen Sink are packed with good stuff galore, and we’re particularly big fans of the hash brown-studded breakfast burrito.

Fairmental, Grand Canal Street Upper

In its three years since opening a sit-down site, fermentation biz Fairmental has gotten better and better at bulking up veggie choices beyond just one lunch option – there’s now regularly meat-free rice bowls and mushroom broths galore. Add in a new breakfast menu that’s almost entirely meat-free, and you’ve got a real destination for gut health goodness.

Sando Paradiso, Blackpitts (V)

In a side-by-side taste testing we found Sando Paradiso’s karaage cauliflower wings infinitely superior to their chicken, and their recent menu revamp would seem to agree. Their vegan breakfast sando is likewise a delight, with smoked vegan bacon and Clonakilty vegan white pud leaving us ill-able to tell the difference. Szechuan corn ribs sound right up our street too.

Toca Tapioca House, Temple Bar (V)

We’ve thankfully come a long way on from the meat-forward image of Brazilian cuisine the earliest openers enforced – places like Toca Tapioca House have done a lot of the heavy lifting. There’s plenty of vegan options among their açaí bowls especially but tapioca/crepioca wraps too and they always keep at least one sweet treat plant-free. If you’re doing dairy, their pão de queijo is a treat of cheesy, chewy goodness.

Brother Hubbard, various locations (V)

There are teenagers on TikTok today whose parents might well have had their first date over a Brother Hubbard brunch. Since 2012, the Middle East-inspired café chain has been bringing people together over brimming bowls of seasonal hummus, Turkish eggs and batata harra, and vegan eating is very easy.

Bang Bang, Phibsborough (V)

Bang Bang is among the coolest cafés in Phisborough, with consistently good coffee, sweet treats and sambos, and they're always thinking of their meat and dairy-free customers. Each day they have different veggie and vegan options that are always killer, like falafel sandwiches and veggie brunch burgers.

It's a Trap, Aungier Street (V)

One of the capital’s hottest vegan spots, It’s a Trap’s famous cinnamon rolls have built up such a giddy fandom they’re constantly coming up with seasonal and regional variations – dulce de leche, lotus biscoff, spiced apple, you name it. Their Korean BBQ wrap with house seitan isn’t far behind in the viral vegan stakes.

Urban Health, Ranelagh (V)

Cold-pressed juices and nutrient-dense salads are all in the name at Urban Health, just off the triangle in Ranelagh. This health-forward café is bursting with options for veggies and vegans, with their smoked tofu vegan BLT, vegan Snickers slice, and cinnamon roll protein pancakes among the things keeping a loyal clientele coming back again and again.

The Fumbally, Liberties

A food-centric community space since its opening back in 2012, The Fumbally remains one of the liveliest rooms to lunch in anywhere in the city. Premium produce is more of a focus than ever since a pandemic pivot saw them add a grocery in, and their circular kitchen’s chefs are given full encouragement to put these great ingredients to use in all manner of creative ways.

Kerb, Foxrock

A feast of flavours picked up over years of travel inform Shona McCabe’s Kerb, with decidedly ungreasy kebabs at the heart of the action. Middle East, Mexico and Mozambique all feature heavily across the menu, with house corn tortillas, za’atar fries and sumac-spiced eggs among the many treats you’ll find here.

Street Food

Sushi & Go, Montague Street

With its celebration of onigiri’s Edo-era origins as an on-the-go snack, Sushi & Go burst onto the scene back at the turn of the year with no shortage of wild acclaim. It lives up to the hype. Pescatarians will have much more choice here, but there’s plenty among the stuffed sushi rice triangles, puffed tofu boats and assorted norimaki to keep most veggies more than satisfied.

Tacos Lupillo, Inchicore

Insufficient veggie options was about the only downside we noted when we first visited Tacos Lupillo back in 2024. The two years since have seen not only a move further up into Inchicore inside The Saint pub, but also development of a vegan chorizo we’ve yet to hear a bad word about. Have it piled high in any of their tacos, tortas, gringas, or volcanes, and don’t skimp on the spiced fermented pineapple tepache to wash it all down with.

Mushroom Butcher, Portobello (V)

As well as supplying the city’s top-tier restaurants and grocers like Evergreen, ex-Veginity chef Mark Senn dishes up delicious mushroom meals out of his South Circular Road food truck every weekend. Mushroom Butcher’s recent menus have honed in on India, New Orleans, Scotland and Singapore – the only constant here is the sense of invention. Fresh fungi are on hand if you want to get inventive yourself, too.

Dosa Dosa, Grand Canal Street & Rialto (V)

Newly opened in a bricks and mortar location in Rialto as well as their long-time Grand Canal Street market hub, Dosa Dosa have come a long way since their ill-timed Feb 2020 beginning. Veggie options are as extensive as you’d expect of South Indian street food, with plenty of their dosas and uttapams available in veganised versions. If you’re not in a hurry, settle in at the Rialto branch for their fully veggie Tamil thali.

Janet's, Drumcondra

Teriyaki tofu and Szechuan aubergine are the heart of the veggie offering at food truck Janet’s, parked up inside Eatyard at the Bernard Shaw – where many concepts have proved their mettle before moving on to bigger and better things. Their gyoza, gua bao and rice bowls all have various veggie options, while vegans will have to make do with spinach gyoza.

Shaka Poke, Blackrock & Baggot Street (V)

We've been big fans of Shaka Poké since their festival and food market stall days, so we were thrilled when they set up permanent shop in Blackrock Market before expanding to Baggot Street. Somewhere specialising in Hawaiian raw fish might not be the obvious place to look for veggie and vegan food, but beetroot, avocado and marinated hoisin tofu toppings give a lot of choice. For the month of March their fully vegan Tahiti Tofu bowl is only €10 too.

Fast Food

McGuinness's, Camden Street (V)

You can’t talk about vegan food in Dublin without talking about McGuinness’s, the Camden Street chipper that debuted a vegan menu back in 2016 and has held the hearts of plant-based patrons ever since – it walked so many others on this list could run. Their seitan and cashew-based Philly cheese steak is regularly held up as the one to try.

Hawker, Rathmines (V)

Excitement was high as the Hang Dai team found a permanent base for their takeaway side hustle Hawker in the latter half of last year, all the more so when they went all-in on a veggie menu. Shiitake mushroom mapo tofu; mushroom dumplings in chilli oil; spicy smashed cucumber we’d eat by the fistful: it’s a long way from afterthought tofu spice bags we are here. Throw in a few of their bottled house cocktails to really make a night of it.

Chiya, Dame Street

Breaking the mould on typical kebab shops, Chiya opened back in 2024 with as many veggie as meaty options, great news for anyone sick of a single falafel option. But that’s no disrespect to them – the müjver here are like a grated courgette twist, and by far our fave against the mixed veg and halloumi that’s also on the go. Whatever you get, pile it high with those house pickles.

The Saucy Cow, Temple Bar (V)

Its name born out of frustration with how often vegan foods in Ireland were desperately dry, The Saucy Cow goes all-in on oozing cheeses, garlic mayos, and their infamous Buckfast BBQ – all ingeniously plant-based. Just about everything here is a treat but it’s the sriracha mayo and chilli crisp-topped hash browns we think back on again and again.

BuJo, Sandymount & Terenure (V)

With culinary director Grainne O’Keefe of Mae fame putting a serious focus on sustainability, it’s little surprise BuJo’s menu makes more space than most of its competitors in the premium burger stakes for veggie and vegan diners – by which we mean, y’know, any space at all. Their Beyond Meat options have all the same care and attention gone into every aspect as the beef, and occasional specials like a miso garlic butter-stuffed panko portobello are worth running for.

Chimac, Aungier Street

There’s none of that standalone special nonsense going on over at Chimac – they’ll swap in panko tofu for chicken in any of their burgers, from the dripping KimCheese to the spicy-sweet K-BBQ - and you’ll well believe cauliflower can fly on the strength of their wings here. Vegans haven’t been forgotten about either, and are advised to ask staff to get the best sense of their options.