Chiang Mai might be the vegan capital of Southeast Asia 🇹🇭🌿 Hidden gems, street food vibes, and Buddhist-inspired cooking — this city does plant-based like nowhere else 🙏 Chiang Mai’s deeply rooted Buddhist vegetarian tradition (known as Jay) combined with its thriving international expat community and eco-conscious traveller culture has produced one of the world’s most extraordinary concentrations of plant-based restaurants.
Chiang Mai’s vegan restaurants are spread across the Old City and the Nimman Road area, all easily reachable by tuk-tuk or bicycle. Here’s my guide to the best.
Best Vegan Restaurants in Chiang Mai
1. Free Bird Café — Smoothie Bowls & Social Impact Dining
Free Bird Café is one of Chiang Mai’s most beloved plant-based restaurants — a beautiful, mission-driven spot where every meal supports the freedom and wellbeing of refugees and displaced people in northern Thailand. The food is excellent — smoothie bowls, plant-based Thai dishes, and creative international options — and eating here carries a genuine sense of purpose and community.
📍 14 Sirimankalajarn Soi 9, Chiang Mai 50200 | ☎️ +66 81 028 5383 | 🌐 thaifreedomhouse.org | 📸 @freebirdcafe
2. The Veganö Bistro — Creative Plant-Based Thai & Western Dishes
The Veganö Bistro is one of Chiang Mai’s most creative and consistent plant-based restaurants — a bistro serving a broad menu of both Thai and Western plant-based dishes alongside homemade baked goods. The creativity and quality of the cooking is impressive, and the bistro atmosphere makes it a wonderful spot for a relaxed meal at any time of day.
📍 69, 69/1 Moo 12, Nong Khwai, Hang Dong, Chiang Mai 50230 | ☎️ +66 65 414 4583 | 🌐 thevegano.com | 📸 @theveganobistro
3. Green Tiger House — Chiang Mai’s First Plant-Based Hotel with an Amazing Menu
Green Tiger House is a unique and genuinely beautiful destination in Chiang Mai — the city’s first plant-based hotel, with a menu that is as impressive as the accommodation. Whether you’re staying or just dining, the food here is consistently extraordinary: creative, seasonal Thai and international plant-based dishes that showcase the best of northern Thai ingredients.
📍 1/4 Soi 7, Sri Poom Road, Chiang Mai 50200 | 🌐 greentigerhouse.com | 📸 @greentigerhouse
4. Asa Vegan Kitchen — Women-Owned Eco Café with the Best Curries
Asa Vegan Kitchen is one of Chiang Mai’s most passionate and delicious plant-based spots — a women-owned eco café that serves some of the best plant-based Thai curries in the city. The commitment to organic, local ingredients and sustainable practices comes through in every dish, and the warm, eco-conscious atmosphere makes every visit feel genuinely wholesome.
📍 217 Tha Phae Road, Chang Moi, Chiang Mai 50100 | ☎️ +66 63 651 4496 | 🌐 asavegankitchen.com | 📸 @asavegankitchen
5. 29 Coffties Vegan — Homemade Vegan Thai Classics
29 Coffties Vegan is one of Chiang Mai’s most beloved and characterful plant-based spots — a small, passionate operation serving homemade vegan Thai classics that taste exactly like the grandmother’s cooking they’re inspired by. The pad thai, massaman curry, and green papaya salad are all outstanding, and the whole experience has an authentic, unhurried quality that is genuinely special.
📍 11/2 Taewan Road, Chang Phueak, Chiang Mai 50300 | ☎️ +66 87 786 8529 | 📸 @29_coffties_vegan_vegetarian
6. Healthy Juice by Khun Kae — Organic Cold-Pressed Juices & Smoothie Bowls
Healthy Juice by Khun Kae is Chiang Mai’s most celebrated organic juice and smoothie bowl destination — a bright, energising spot producing cold-pressed juices and beautiful smoothie bowls from the finest local organic produce. The perfect start to a Chiang Mai morning.
📍 19/3 Mun Mueang Road, Si Phum, Chiang Mai 50200 | 📸 @healthyjuice_by_khunkae
7. Reform Kafe — Traditional Thai with a Modern Twist
Reform Kafe is one of Chiang Mai’s most thoughtful plant-based restaurants — a café taking traditional Northern Thai cuisine and reimagining it with a modern, clean, and creative approach. The results are dishes that feel both genuinely rooted in Thai culinary tradition and excitingly contemporary.
📍 1/4 Sripoom Road Lane 7, Chiang Mai 50200 | ☎️ +66 93 182 8188 | 🌐 greentigerhouse.com | 📸 @reformkafe
8. Vegan Heaven CNX — Homestyle Plant-Based Thai Food
Vegan Heaven CNX is exactly what the name promises — a wonderful, homestyle plant-based Thai restaurant in Chiang Mai that serves simple, honest, and deeply satisfying vegan Thai food. It’s the kind of place where you return day after day because the food is genuinely nourishing and the warmth of the welcome makes you feel immediately at home.
📍 44/6 Loi Kroh Road, Chiang Mai 50100 | ☎️ +66 87 577 5444 | 🌐 veganheavencnx.com | 📸 @veganheavencnx
9. Sukjai — Michelin Guide-Featured Buddhist Vegetarian Cuisine
Sukjai has the honour of being featured in the Michelin Guide for its exceptional Buddhist vegetarian cuisine — a restaurant that draws on centuries of Thai Buddhist cooking tradition to produce plant-based dishes of extraordinary depth and refinement. Eating here is an experience in Thai culinary heritage as much as it is a meal.
📍 40 Charoen Muang Road, Wat Ket, Chiang Mai 50000 | 📸 @sukjai_cnx
Tips for Vegan Travellers in Chiang Mai
Chiang Mai is a compact and beautiful city, and getting around by bicycle or tuk-tuk is the best way to explore its vegan restaurants. The Nimman Road area has a high concentration of modern plant-based cafés, while the Old City and surrounding neighbourhoods are home to more traditional Jay (Buddhist vegetarian) restaurants. Free Bird Café and Sukjai are both genuinely non-negotiable stops. And Green Tiger House is worth visiting even just for a meal — the cooking is extraordinary.
Have you eaten vegan in Chiang Mai? Let me know your favourite spots in the comments!