The Best Vegan Restaurants In Tel Aviv, Israel
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The food scene of the small country of Israel is well known all over the world. Israeli chefs own and operate restaurants in food capitals, like Paris, London, and New York. Some are award-winners or with Michelin stars. As veganism is on the rise for the past 6 years, it’s not a surprise that the local culinary experts make some of the best vegan foods you would ever have. Israeli cuisine is already based on many vegetables and legumes. Together with the kosher restrictions, veganism was relatively easier to absorb, and Israel is one of the most vegan countries in the world and Tel Aviv a vegan capital. The restaurants offer traditional Israeli dishes, amazing vegan versions of Israeli breakfast and shakshuka (with “eggs”), burgers, quiches, and more. One thing is certain – you can’t go hungry when you are in Tel Aviv.
Here are the best vegan restaurants of Tel Aviv:
Anastasia – All-Day Cafe
Anastasia is a beautiful place, located in the heart of Tel-Aviv. It has cool chill-out vibes thanks to the open deck and comfortable seating, and it’s a great spot for relaxation from the high speed of the city.
With an all-natural kitchen, Anastasia restaurant Tel Aviv is offering healthy and delicious food. All their cheese substitutes are self-made on the spot. They serve an amazing breakfast that includes scrambled tofu, chickpea omelet, or shakshuka with polenta balls as the egg replacement. If you come for lunch or dinner, you can choose from a wide menu of sandwiches, quiches, pizzas, and more. Two plates you must try are the Shakshuka and the cheese plate.
Address: 54 Frishman St, Tel Aviv.
416 – The Sophisticated
Four one six (this is how you call it) is probably the boldest kitchen amongst the vegan restaurants of Tel-Aviv, and many would say it is the best in the city. The atmosphere is chic and elegant, but not too fancy – just like the city itself. The menu is rich with vegan versions for everything you can dream of – fried calamari, schnitzel, Labneh cheese, shawarma, and more. The one that you don’t want to miss is the “roast beef” sandwich, served in delicious challah bread.
Address: 16 Ha’arbaa st., Tel Aviv.
Green Roll – Sushi Time
If you consider yourself a sushi lover, and it doesn’t matter if you are on a plant-based diet or not, you have to visit The Green Roll at least once. This sushi heaven does not try to imitate sea flavors, and they don’t need to, as they create a different, genuine, and unique experience.
You really can’t go wrong here, but I do have two favorites. The San Francisco roll, with asparagus, avocado, and wasabi, topped with onion jam and walnuts. The second and more exotic choice is the Cantina roll, with peanut butter, coconut milk, yam, and scallions, topped with avocado and cilantro. Which one would you choose?
Address: 30 Montefiore St. Tel Aviv
Rainbow – Hamburger Mood
This hamburger place is absolutely amazing, and it is one of the most popular vegan restaurants in Tel-Aviv. The menu offers a variety of patties to choose from – mushroom and soy patty, homemade patty made from pea protein, Beyond burger, and soy schnitzel. The signature plate is the Rainburger and this is why most people come here. If you want it more special, take the Rainbow King, with coconut-oil cheddar, tofu & pumpkin-based egg, and pea-protein-bacon.
Address: 88 Ibn Gvirol St. Tel Aviv
The Green Butcher – Israeli BBQ
I think that most vegans and also many non-vegans have already tried the Beyond Burger, which is an incredible substitute for meat in both taste and texture. The Green Butcher took the Beyond Burger one step forward and created a full menu out of it. If you want to get the Israeli experience of meat dishes in their vegan option – this is your place. With their unique spices, they make Shawarma, Schnitzel, Kebab, and more. My number one recommendation is the Arais, a pita stuffed with ground “beef”, grilled and served hot. Tahini is the best sauce for this dish and all other dishes as well.
Address: 98 Ben Yehuda Street, Tel Aviv
Bana – Fresh From The Market To Your Plate
Healthy, trendy, colorful, and seasonal – this is what Bana Tel Aviv is all about. They emphasize the use of fresh ingredients and therefore the menu changes with the season, based on what is available in the markets. This also means that if the chef has found an interesting ingredient in the morning, there will be a surprising Daily special. Every visit can be a surprise, so it’s worth coming more than once.
Bana is well known for the weekend brunch and the great cocktails, and they have two dishes that I adore. The mushroom and leek waffle with cashew creme, nutmeg, and hazelnuts; and the buckwheat pastry – filled with eggplant, tomatoes, onion, oregano on mint tzatziki.
Address: 36 Nachmani St. Tel Aviv
Goodness – Oh My Goodness!
When East meets West something wonderful happens, and this is what Goodness is all about. With a selection of burgers, hot dogs, and milkshakes you can treat yourself like in an all-American diner. But the menu also offers Middle Eastern food, like the Israeli breakfast, shakshuka, and even beet kubbeh – a traditional Jewish Iraqi plate of stuffed semolina balls in beet soup. There’s no doubt that this is one of the best vegan restaurants in Tel Aviv.
The most interesting thing about this place is that they invented a vegan egg. Long three years of hard work eventually led them to the result that they were looking for, and it was worth the wait. The egg is made of squash and tofu and it has the looks, the texture, and the taste of a real sunny side egg. It’s going to blow your mind! The egg can be added to a burger or served in the Israeli breakfast.
Address: 41 King George St. Tel Aviv
Meshek Barzilay – Delicatessen
The charming Meshek Barzilay Tel Aviv is located in the beautiful neighborhood of Neve Tzedek, which is a magical area of the city. They have vegan breakfasts, lunch and dinner menus, and for your little ones, they have special kids’ menu. My most favorite dish is the Seitan Pizza with homemade seitan. The second best is called Mushrooms – a mix of mushrooms served on top of black rice risotto and a creamy walnut sauce.
Next door to the restaurant they operate a delicatessen store. Here you can takeout some of the foods they offer at the restaurant or enjoy their great selections of cheeses, spreads, sauces, cakes, and pastries. This is a great way to carry with you some of their delicious flavors for a later meal or a picnic on the beach.
Address: 6 Ehad Ha’am st. Tel Aviv
Michelangelo Cafe – Middle-Eastern Deliciousness
When you are in Tel Aviv, you have to visit Jaffa. And when in Jaffa, you have to eat at Michelangelo. The breakfast menu is available until 5 pm and offers coffee with a pastry, sandwiches, or a full Israeli breakfast. The lunch/dinner menu is available all day long and offers mostly delicious Middle Eastern dishes. Located in a small residential street, you will find here a versatile Jaffa audience of young hipsters, people in suits, and parents with kids. I loved the Kebab skewers, which are great with the beet salad.
Address: 2 Ben Teradion St, Yafo
The Green Cat – Time For Pizza
When you walk into The Green Cat, you already have a smile on your face. The cool vibes are coming from the old and new posters, the great music, and the smiley staff. This is why both vegans and non-vegans enjoy coming here for a delicious pizza. The crust is thin, and they make fresh tomato sauce and cashew cheese every day on the spot. They offer a wide variety of interesting toppings, such as kalamata olives, mushrooms, artichokes, sweet potatoes, seitan, and more.
Who doesn’t love pizza? and when it is so good it’s really hard to resist.
Address: 7 Levontin, Tel Aviv
General Tips
Shuffle bar – Florentine-style bar with a rich vegan food menu (though not everything here is vegan). On Mondays, all the main vegan dishes are on a 30% discount. They offer nice selections of beers from all over the world and some games for social activity. It’s a great place for midweek dinner and drinks. Address: 19 Florentin St.
Malek Sweets Yafo is a pastry store with vegan options and a cafe in Jaffa. You can take out or have a seat in this authentic place while enjoying delicious Arab sweets and a strong tea or black coffee. The best one in my opinion is the vegan Kanfeh. Address: 36 Yehuda Hayamit St.
Tivonela is a bakery and ice cream shop that serves 100% vegan products at 100% deliciousness. Some unique ice cream flavors that you can find here are Snickers, Dulce de Leche, and Red Bamba (a famous Israeli kids’ snack). Address: 5 Jerusalem Blvd.
Hummus is the all Israeli food, and there are many hummus restaurants in the city. One that is special for its experience is Abu Hassan in Yafo. They serve hummus until they run out of it (around mid-day) and there’s always a line outside, so patience is required. It’s better to come early and eat quickly, as that’s the style of this place. Address: 1 Ha-Dolfin St, Yafo.
Final Thoughts
With so many options, a visit to Tel Aviv can be all around the food. Some of my visits were exactly like that – going from one restaurant to the other, trying and enjoying every dish. The vegan and vegan friendly restaurants (many of them are) of Tel Aviv provide an amazing experience of middle eastern flavors, smells, and sounds, together with European and American influences on style on presentation. New places keep opening up, so make sure you have enough time to try most of them.
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Vegan food has never looked so good! We’d have to see which of these dishes are also gluten-free, but it looks like many might be!
WOW! This food looked amazing. We like to mix up our diet and eat a few vegetarian / vegan meals a week, which is not always easy to do when you travel. Great information. We hope to get to Israel late in 2021, so this will be a big help.
The vegan scene in Israel, and Tel Aviv especially, is one of the best in the world! and I am sure you will love it, not just because of the great food 🙂
As someone who’s not vegan, but it trying to reduce my meat intake – I think one of my worries has always been not being able to find any or good vegan food whilst travelling. This certainly doesn’t seem to be a problem in Tel Aviv, it all looks absolutely delicious!! I think Green Roll looks like my favourite
When you travel in big cities it’s not really a problem. I was fearing that as well, but I discovered that a little planning, as you do for all other the aspects of your travel, can find you amazing places and interesting food!
Woah these all look fantastic! I am not vegan myself but I do love a vegan option sometimes! Great post!
Thank you Holly!
I hope you can try any of those one day… 🙂
::drooling!:: I haven’t visited Israel since 2008, and I am itching to go back. These restaurants all look fantastic, but Anastasia is really calling my name. Especially the shakshuka with polenta balls! Sounds great.
Yum! this is definitely one of my favorites!
We used to have an excellent vegan restaurant 15min from where I live. They made fantastic dishes that looked and tasted almost like meat dishes and we went there quite a few times. Sadly, they closed a few years ago. Probably because they were quite expensive and discouraged using credit cards.
This is unfortunate. I hope you find another vegan restaurant that you like.
All of these look so good! Every restaurant that I read about ended up being my favourite until I read the next one! Bana sounds one of the most amazing ones to me – that mushroom and leek waffle, yum! The hamburgers from Rainbow look unreal too!
I wouldn’t know to choose my most favorite, and each has its own specialties – they are all really so good!
We are vegetarians so naturally, this list is so very exciting for me. Turkish and middle eastern food is simply delicious. Going to pin this post too!
Thank you Supriya! I hope you get to use it when you visit Israel 🙂
I am not a fan of vegan foods but the dishes here look delicious. All of them are exquisite and worth a visit.
They definitely are!
This is very helpful! As a vegetarian myself, this guide would be especially helpful for visiting the area. I always seem to have some trouble finding good choices for food, so having a list beforehand is always useful. I wouldn’t know where to start, but the Seitan Pizza at Meshek Barzilay and the buckwheat pastry at Bana sound lovely.
Great choices! Honestly, in Tel Aviv, it’s pretty easy for vegetarians and vegans, almost every restaurant has options in their menu. However, the ones on my list are fully vegan and personally were my favorites!
What a great selection! I’m not vegan, but I love checking out vegan restaurants, so I’ll be sure to check some of these out during my rescheduled Israel trip!
Tho’ you should add a disclaimer to this list: I ate just before reading this, but seeing the photos made me hungry again. haha
Ha ha!
I am sure you will enjoy these places. I hope you get to execute your plans to visit Israel soon 🙂
These all look seriously good! I would love to try more vegan versions of Israeli food. Some of the non- Israeli restaurants (like that sushi) looks amaaaazing too!
You must have had so much researching all of these. 😉
I had more, and these were my favorites. In Israel most restaurants of vegan options, but I wanted to choose only 100% vegan places to go on the main top 10 list.
Writing about the top 10 restaurants in a place is the best research to make 🙂
Tel Aviv has some pretty restaurants. I love Vegan chocolates and cakes and these places just sound so amazing.
Oh boy. As a vegan, I’m all for doing some preliminary research about where to find the best food before I travel. You’ve made some amazing recommendations.
Saving this post for when I travel to Tel Aviv, but right now I’m going to go fix myself a sandwich as all those food pictures are making me salivate!
Oh yes!!! I hope that sandwich was satisfying 🙂
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