Vegan East London

London’s first vegan fried chicken shop and its first fully vegan pub opened a year apart, in 2017 and 2018, and both are still pouring and frying in Hackney, about a 15-minute walk from each other. That patch of East London is where I would send anyone who wants a whole weekend of eating without asking a server a single question about the sauce.

This list runs from a Michelin-starred tasting menu off Old Street to Ethiopian platters on Kingsland Road, Brazilian sandwiches by the water in Hackney Wick and Thai fire bowls opposite Liverpool Street station. If you are planning a longer trip, the destinations page has every city I cover.

Vegan East London at a Glance

• Best for a big night out: Plates
• Best for tofish and chips with cocktails: Unity Diner
• Best for a fried chick’n fix: Temple of Seitan
• Best for a pint and pub classics: The Spread Eagle
• Best for pancakes and pastries: WAVE
• Best for milkshakes and a community café: Black Cat Café
• Best for sharing platters and BYOB: Andu Café
• Best for a quick lunch near Liverpool Street: King CookDaily
• Best for Brazilian sandwiches in Hackney Wick: Essential Vegan Café

Best Vegan Restaurants in East London

1. Plates: Michelin-Starred Tasting Menus Off Old Street Vegan

Plates is where I would book the big night. Recent diners rave about the caramelised lion’s mane mushroom, which has the pull-apart texture of slow-braised beef, over cauliflower cream, and the barbecued maitake (hen-of-the-woods) with black bean mole, a dark Mexican sauce. Save room for the raw cacao gateau with sour cherry, the dessert that won chef Kirk Haworth Great British Menu.

Lunch is an 8-course Signature menu at £109, and the 10-course Discovery menu costs £125. The dishes change with the seasons, and this September diners singled out the chicory root ice cream and the cacao old fashioned. Kirk runs Plates with his sister Keeley, and in 2025 it became the first vegan restaurant in the UK to win a Michelin star.

💡 Tip: Tables are released in seasonal booking windows about 3 months ahead on Tock, with a £65 deposit per person, so set a reminder. Plates opens Wednesday to Saturday for lunch from 12PM and dinner from 5:30PM, takes tables of up to 6, cannot cater for nut, soy or allium (onion and garlic) allergies and is not wheelchair accessible.

📍 320 Old Street, London EC1V 9DR | Shoreditch | 🌐 plates-london.com | 📸 @plates_london

2. Unity Diner: Tofish and Chips for a Good Cause Vegan

Order the tofish and chips, beer-battered tofu and the dish recent diners name first. Visitors this September also went for the calamari, a döner (kebab-style wrap) that one called amazing, and a salted caramel cake that an American visitor called the best vegan cake they had ever eaten. Portions are big and the plates arrive looking good.

Burgers, hot dogs, loaded fries and “prawnz”, the house vegan prawns, fill out the menu, the dessert list is long and the cocktail menu gives you a reason to stay. Unity runs as a not-for-profit diner and bar on Wentworth Street, beside Petticoat Lane Market, and its profits go to Surge Sanctuary. Sunday is carvery day.

💡 Tip: Unity Diner is card only and closed on Mondays. It opens 12PM to 10PM Tuesday to Saturday, and on Sundays it serves only the carvery from 12PM to 8PM, so book ahead for that.

📍 60 Wentworth Street, London E1 7AL | Spitalfields | 🌐 unitydiner.co.uk | 📸 @unitydiner

3. Temple of Seitan: The Fried Chick’n Shop That Started It Vegan

Get the chick’n burger. Seitan, a chewy wheat-gluten meat, is fried in a crisp seasoned coat, and recent reviewers call the burger juicy, the texture great and the whole thing a classic for a reason. Pair it with chips and the ranch dip, and order the large pot of sauce, because one diner found the small pot lasted about 3 chips.

The honey mustard combo is a good sharing order, and the menu also has waffles and chick’n, a doner wrap and mac and cheese, though the mac gets mixed reviews. Temple of Seitan opened here on Morning Lane in January 2017 as the UK’s first vegan fried chicken shop, and it now has a sister shop in Camden.

💡 Tip: Temple of Seitan opens every day from 12PM to 10PM, which makes it my pick for an evening bite after a pint in Hackney. The Hackney shop is smaller than the Camden branch, so take your order to go on busy evenings.

📍 10 Morning Lane, London E9 6NA | Hackney Central | 🌐 templeofseitan.co.uk | 📸 @templeofseitan

4. The Spread Eagle: Pie, Mash and Liquor in London’s First Vegan Pub Vegan

Order the pie, mash and liquor, the old East End pie-shop plate, where the liquor is a green parsley sauce. Recent visitors had it with cumin carrots on the side, and one group worked through the small plates and named the baked “shamenbert” (a vegan camembert), the gigantes beans (Greek giant butter beans) and the pea soup as favourites.

The Korean burger with crispy fried mushrooms is the other main people keep ordering, and the menu follows the seasons. The Spread Eagle opened in January 2018 as London’s first fully vegan pub and has cooked its own food since 2020. It is a proper Homerton local, with friendly staff, a relaxed bar and a queer-friendly crowd.

💡 Tip: The pub opens at 4PM Monday to Friday and 12PM on weekends, and the kitchen serves from 5PM on weekdays and 12PM on weekends until 10PM (8PM on Sundays). On Sundays it serves 3 roasts led by the beet wellington, which I cover in my vegan Sunday roast guide to London.

📍 224 Homerton High Street, London E9 6AS | Homerton | 🌐 thespreadeaglelondon.co.uk | 📸 @thespreadeaglelondon

5. WAVE: Pancakes and Pastries in Hackney Central Vegan

Come for the pancakes, which turn up in more reviews than anything else on the menu, stacked with seasonal toppings. The pastry counter is the other draw, with croissants, almond croissants, sausage rolls and mushroom rolls, and a visitor who came back 4 times in one weekend this month singled out the cakes as wonderful.

For something savoury, order the shakshuka, a spiced tomato and pepper stew that regulars rave about, or the scrambled tofu and avocado toast. WAVE stands for We Are Vegan Everything, and the café is industrial with Bali-inspired touches, outdoor seating, a big cake display and good coffee.

💡 Tip: The kitchen closes at 2PM on weekdays and 3:30PM on weekends, though the café stays open until 4PM Monday to Friday and 5PM on Saturdays and Sundays with sandwiches, toasties and cakes. Weekends open at 8AM, and an early start is the easiest way to get an outdoor table.

📍 11 Dispensary Lane, London E8 1FT | Hackney Central | 🌐 weareveganeverything.com | 📸 @wearewaveldn

6. Black Cat Café: Pakoras, Milkshakes and Big Portions in Clapton Vegan

Order a milkshake, the thing reviewers mention most after the portion sizes, and a plate of pakoras, the crisp Indian gram-flour fritters one recent visitor enjoyed with a coffee. The sausage rolls and samosas are what the café itself is proudest of, and the salad bowls and chickpea curry arrive in very generous helpings.

Brunch is a strong move too: a visitor last month came with their mum and found the breakfast perfectly filling and the matcha very tasty. Black Cat has been a 100% vegan café on Clarence Road since 2013, with sofas, mismatched tables, a shelf of political books and cookbooks, and vegan cheeses and German soft drinks to take home.

💡 Tip: Black Cat is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. It opens 11:30AM to 3:30PM on Wednesdays and Thursdays, 11:30AM to 9PM on Fridays, 10AM to 9PM on Saturdays and 10AM to 3:30PM on Sundays, so Friday or Saturday is your chance for dinner. Around holidays it closes for short breaks, so check their Instagram before you go.

📍 76A Clarence Road, London E5 8HB | Clapton | ☎️ 020 8985 7091 | 🌐 blackcatcafe.co.uk | 📸 @blackcathackney

7. Andu Café: Ethiopian Platters on Kingsland Road Vegan

Order a platter and let it land on a sheet of injera, the sour, spongy Ethiopian flatbread that recent diners call light and bubbly. The dark red lentil stew gets the most praise, alongside gomen (slow-cooked collard greens) and shiro (a smooth spiced chickpea stew). A medium platter is huge for one person, so share.

Groups can go big with the family platter, which one table of 5 ordered in January and loved. Wash it down with the house jungle juice, which reviewers find refreshing. Andu calls itself the UK’s first vegan Ethiopian restaurant, it is family run, and diners keep describing the service as quick and kind and the food as excellently spiced.

💡 Tip: Andu is cash only and BYOB with no corkage, so stop at a cash machine and an off-licence (a shop that sells alcohol) on Kingsland Road on the way. It opens daily from 12PM to 10PM, and you can book by phone before 5:30PM.

📍 528 Kingsland Road, London E8 4AH | Dalston | ☎️ 020 7254 1780 | 🌐 anduvegancafe.com | 📸 @andu_vegancafe

8. King CookDaily: Thai and Lao Fire Bowls by Liverpool Street Vegan

Order the Kop-Jai bowl: tom yum fried rice, cooked with the paste for Thailand’s hot and sour soup, under a crispy chick’n cutlet in a sticky caramelised soy glaze, with spring rolls and a poppadom on the side. The jerk bowl with mock chicken is the other recent favourite, praised for fluffy rice and seasoning that hits hard.

Chef King cooks plant-based Thai and Lao street food, every bowl made fresh to order, and regulars say the menu is long enough to eat here daily without getting bored. CookDaily started in a shipping container at Boxpark Shoreditch in 2015 and now cooks inside Boxhall City, a food hall opposite the Liverpool Street station entrance.

💡 Tip: Boxhall City is a busy food hall with bars, so it works for a mixed group where only some of you eat vegan. King CookDaily opens at 11AM daily and closes at 10PM Wednesday to Saturday, 9PM on Mondays and Tuesdays and 8PM on Sundays.

📍 Boxhall City, 1-27 The Arcade, Liverpool Street, London EC2M 7PN | Liverpool Street | 🌐 boxhall.co.uk | 📸 @cookdailylondon

9. Essential Vegan Café: Brazilian Sandwiches by the Water in Hackney Wick Vegan

Get the BLT, made with Essential Vegan’s own seitan bacon, which a recent visitor ranked as easily the best they had tried. The salpicão sandwich, filled with a creamy Brazilian chick’n salad, is the one people pair it with, and both got called elite this summer. Add a matcha or almond latte and a slice of mocha cake.

For a proper plate, order the feijoada, Brazil’s black bean stew, or the jackfruit bacalhau, a take on the Portuguese salt-cod dish. Essential Vegan has been cooking Brazilian food in London since 2012 and now runs a residency café inside All My Friends, a music venue with a bar and record shop, looking out over the canal.

💡 Tip: Essential Vegan is open Wednesday to Sunday from 10AM to 4PM, so pair it with a daytime wander around Hackney Wick’s street art. The café sits inside the Hamlet Industrial Estate and the doorway is easy to miss, so head for All My Friends and you will find it inside.

📍 Unit 1, Hamlet Industrial Estate, 96 White Post Lane, London E9 5EN | Hackney Wick | ☎️ 07578 834445 | 🌐 essentialvegan.uk | 📸 @essentialvegan

Columbia Road and the Sunday Flower Market

Every Sunday from 8AM, Columbia Road in Bethnal Green fills with flower stalls that trade until around 3PM. The market began as Saturday trading and was moved to Sunday by Act of Parliament so local Jewish traders could take part, and many of today’s stallholders are the second or third generation of their family selling on the street.

Get there early for the best buckets of flowers, then browse the 60 or so independent shops along the road once the crowds build. It is a 5-minute walk from Shoreditch High Street or Hoxton stations, and Unity Diner and King CookDaily are both about 20 minutes away on foot for lunch.

Vegan East London: What to Know Before You Go

• Hackney Central, Hackney Wick, Dalston Junction, Hoxton and Shoreditch High Street are all London Overground stations, and you can tap in and out with a contactless card or phone.
• Most places take cards, but Andu Café is cash only, while Unity Diner takes cards only.
• Mondays and Tuesdays are quiet: Black Cat and Essential Vegan close on both, Plates closes Sunday to Tuesday and Unity Diner closes on Mondays.
• Book Plates as soon as its seasonal booking window opens, about 3 months ahead.
• Many London restaurants add a 12.5% service charge to the bill, so check before you tip.
• Every big UK supermarket has its own vegan range, and Greggs, the national bakery chain, sells a vegan sausage roll for train journeys.

When to Visit East London

June has the longest days, with the sun setting after 9PM, and late spring to early September is when WAVE’s outdoor tables, the walk out to Hackney Wick and a late Saturday at the Spread Eagle make the most sense. Summer weekends are busy everywhere on this list, so book Unity Diner and the Spread Eagle for Sundays.

Autumn and winter are mild, grey and damp, which is exactly the weather for pie and mash, an Ethiopian platter on Kingsland Road and a long Sunday lunch. Plates changes its tasting menus with the seasons, so pick the season whose produce you want and book about 3 months ahead.

Vegan East London FAQ