The most famous pizza in Naples is vegan and always has been. A marinara is tomato, garlic, oregano, olive oil and a little salt, the EU rules that protect Pizza Napoletana list exactly that, and there is no cheese in it anywhere. You can walk into almost any pizzeria in the city and order the thing they are proudest of.
Where Naples catches people out is everything around the pizza: the lard in the taralli, the savoury ring biscuits sold on every corner, and the beef hiding in la genovese, the slow-cooked onion sauce. Below are the nine places I would send a friend to, from a Vomero bistro doing Neapolitan home cooking without animals to a vegan sfogliatella on Via Duomo and fried pizza from a three-time champion in the Sanità.
Vegan Naples at a Glance
- Best Neapolitan cooking: Arrecrià in Vomero, for pasta e patate with vegan provola
- Best lunch: the daily dishes at ‘O Grin by the university
- Best fast food: burgers at Green M’ama near Piazza Municipio
- Best pastry: the vegan sfogliatella at Vegan Art on Via Duomo
- Best fried pizza: Isabella De Cham in the Sanità, with a full vegan section
- Best pizza on unusual doughs: turmeric and hemp at Vitto Pitagorico
- Everywhere: a pizza marinara, vegan by recipe
Best Vegan Restaurants in Naples
1. Arrecrià Bistrot: Neapolitan Home Cooking, All Plant-Based Vegan
Order the pasta e patate, pasta and potatoes cooked down until creamy, here with vegan provola melting through it, the most Neapolitan comfort food there is. Start with the croquettes and the fried artichokes, and finish with one of the cheesecakes. The wine list is vegan too.
The kitchen cooks plant-based versions of the dishes this city eats at home, and stays faithful to the originals. It is up in Vomero, the hilltop district above the centre, so take the funicular and make an evening of it.
💡 Tip: Closed on Wednesdays. Dinner runs 7PM to 11PM, with lunch 12PM to 3PM on Saturday and Sunday. Book, and ring the mobile if you want a table the same day.
📍 Via Belvedere 164, 80127 Napoli | Vomero | ☎️ 342 800 7699 | 🌐 arrecriabistrot.it | 📸 @arrecria_bistrot
2. ‘O Grin: The Vegan Lunch Canteen by the University Vegan
‘O Grin was the first fully vegan takeaway in Naples, and the dishes change every day, cooked from local ingredients: a couple of pastas, vegetable sides, grains and something sweet. Point at the counter, fill a box, and eat it on the steps outside like the students do.
It is on Via Mezzocannone in the middle of the university quarter, a few minutes from the Duomo and the Cappella Sansevero, and it is cheap, quick and friendly.
💡 Tip: Open 10AM to 4PM Monday to Saturday, closed Sunday, so make it your lunch and plan the afternoon around it.
📍 Via Mezzocannone 83, 80134 Napoli | Centro Storico | ☎️ 081 0480169 | 📸 @ogrin.napoli
3. Officina Vegana: House-Made Tofu and Seitan Vegan
The kitchen makes its own tofu and seitan and uses organic ingredients, and the food is fast, filling and cheap: bowls, sandwiches and daily plates built around what they made that morning. It is the easy lunch at the port end of the Centro Storico.
It is small and fully vegan, on the corner of Via Sedile di Porto and Via Mezzocannone, two minutes from ‘O Grin, so between the two of them lunch in the old town is sorted.
💡 Tip: Closed on Sundays, and mostly a daytime kitchen, with some evening service later in the week. Message them on Instagram for the day’s hours.
📍 Via Sedile di Porto 71, 80134 Napoli | Centro Storico | ☎️ 342 142 9171 | 📸 @officina_vegana
4. Green M’ama: Vegan Burgers and Fried Things Vegan
Burgers, fried snacks and exactly the food you want after a day walking on volcanic paving stones, all plant-based. It opened in 2023 and it is the place most likely to win over a sceptical travelling companion.
It is on Via San Giacomo, just behind Piazza Municipio, and it delivers through the usual apps for the night you cannot face going out again.
💡 Tip: Closed on Mondays. It is one of the few fully vegan dinners in the centre, so it is a good plan for your first night.
📍 Via San Giacomo 27, 80133 Napoli | Municipio | ☎️ 081 376 2232 | 🌐 green-mama.com | 📸 @green.mama.official
5. Vegan Art: The Vegan Sfogliatella Vegan
Order a sfogliatella. It is the pastry Naples is famous for, a shell of crisp, many-layered pastry filled with sweet ricotta cream, normally made with lard, ricotta and egg, and Vegan Art makes it without any of them. The rest of the Neapolitan pastry case is here too, all vegan.
It is a bakery on Via Duomo in the Centro Storico. There is a separate café across the street with vegan options, and the bakery is the one you want.
💡 Tip: Go early, when the sfogliatelle are still warm, and message on WhatsApp on 348 563 5823 to order for a group.
📍 Via Duomo 238, 80138 Napoli | Centro Storico | ☎️ 081 377 6273 | 📸 @vegan_art_bakery
6. Isabella De Cham: Champion Fried Pizza With a Vegan Menu
Pizza fritta, pizza dough stuffed and deep-fried until it puffs up golden, is the Sanità’s gift to the city, and Isabella De Cham has a whole vegan section of it. Order a vegan fried pizza, then the vegan crocchè, potato croquettes, and a vegan frittatina, the fried pasta cake, and finish with the vegan millefritta.
She won best fried pizza at The Best Pizza Awards in 2023, 2024 and 2025, which is the sort of record that would have the Ninja Turtles queueing down Via Arena della Sanità. The menu serves meat and fish too, so order from the vegan section.
💡 Tip: Book on WhatsApp on 347 832 4309, especially on weekends. The Sanità is worth an afternoon on its own, with the catacombs of San Gennaro a few minutes away.
📍 Via Arena della Sanità 27, 80137 Napoli | Sanità | ☎️ 081 1863 9669 | 🌐 isabelladecham.com | 📸 @isabelladechampizzafritta
7. OWAP: Fried Pizza From a World Champion, Vegan Too
Order the vegan fried pizza. OWAP’s founder, Mauro Espedito, won the fried pizza category at the Trofeo Caputo in 2022, the world championship for Neapolitan pizza makers held every summer on the seafront, and he is still at the oven. There are vegan versions of the classic Neapolitan pizzas too.
It is an ordinary Neapolitan pizzeria with a proper vegan line, so order from that. There are three branches: Via Foria by the archaeological museum, Pignasecca and Vomero.
💡 Tip: Hours differ by branch, so check the one you are heading to. Via Foria is the easiest to combine with the museum.
📍 Via Foria 150, 80137 Napoli | Foria | ☎️ 081 1957 3227 | 🌐 owap.it | 📸 @owap_pizzerie
8. Vitto Pitagorico: Pizza on Turmeric and Hemp Doughs Vegetarian
Order a pizza on one of the unusual doughs, turmeric or hemp, with vegan cheese. It is Neapolitan-style pizza from a kitchen that serves no meat at all, with vegan, raw and gluten-free dishes alongside.
Before English had the word vegetarian, not eating meat was called the Pythagorean diet, after Pythagoras, and the restaurant is named after it. It is between Piazza Dante and the archaeological museum. It is vegetarian, so order from the vegan dishes.
💡 Tip: Book online through their site. It is a two-minute walk from the Museo metro stop.
📍 Via Enrico Pessina 55, 80135 Napoli | Museo | 🌐 vittopitagorico.it | 📸 @vittopitagorico
9. Amico Bio: Organic Vegetarian Cooking Since 2003 Vegetarian
The produce comes from an organic farming cooperative, and the menu is built around it: seasonal vegetable dishes, soups and pasta, with plenty of vegan choices. Amico Bio opened in 2003 and was one of the first vegetarian restaurants in the city.
It is tucked into a lane off Piazza Bellini in the Centro Storico, the square where Naples goes for a drink in the evening. It is vegetarian, so ask which dishes are vegan.
💡 Tip: Go for dinner and have a drink in Piazza Bellini afterwards.
📍 Vico San Pietro a Maiella 6, 80138 Napoli | Centro Storico | ☎️ 081 455026 | 📸 @unsorrisointegrale
Naples Was a City of Leaf Eaters
Before Naples ate pasta, it ate greens. The historian Emilio Sereni called the change the move from mangiafoglia to mangiamaccheroni, leaf eater to macaroni eater. Through the 1600s the city outgrew its market gardens, the screw press made dried pasta cheap, and a city of cabbage eaters became a city of macaroni.
The leaf eaters’ food is still on menus. Friarielli, the bitter broccoli tops Naples is obsessed with, scarola, escarole, and cicoria, chicory, are all cooked with garlic and oil. One old cabbage nearly vanished: torzella riccia, a curly leaf cabbage that reached this coast thousands of years ago, now survives as a Slow Food Presidium around Acerra and Nola. If you see it on a menu, order it.
The pizza that made the city famous is a craft as much as a dish: in 2017 UNESCO added the Art of Neapolitan ‘Pizzaiuolo’ to its intangible heritage list, for the skill passed from master to apprentice at the oven.
Vegan Naples: What to Know Before You Go
- Order these freely: pizza marinara, pane cafone, the big country loaf, cianfotta, the Neapolitan vegetable stew, friarielli as a side, and papaccelle, small sweet peppers preserved in vinegar.
- Pastries are the trap. Sfogliatella is made with lard and ricotta, pastiera has eggs and ricotta, and struffoli, the little honey balls, have eggs and butter. Go to Vegan Art instead.
- Watch the savouries. Taralli are usually made with ’nzogna, lard, la genovese is a beef sauce, minestra maritata is greens cooked with pork, and stuffed escarole and stuffed peppers often hide anchovies or tuna.
- Ask about the pasta e fagioli. Ask c’è cotenna o parmigiano?, is there pork rind or parmesan, because restaurants often add one to the pot.
- Coffee: an espresso is vegan, but bars often sugar it unless you ask for it amaro, and caffè nocciola, the hazelnut one, is made with a milk cream.
- Plan lunch carefully. ‘O Grin and Officina Vegana are daytime kitchens, so the fully vegan dinners are Arrecrià and Green M’ama, plus pizza everywhere.
- Getting around: most of this list is within a 20-minute walk of the Duomo. Arrecrià is up in Vomero, by funicular.
When to Visit Naples
April to June and September to October are the best months, warm enough for pizza outside and cool enough to climb Vesuvius. August is very hot and some family-run places close for a week or two around Ferragosto, 15 August. December is lovely, with the nativity-scene workshops of Via San Gregorio Armeno at their busiest.
Vegan Naples FAQ
Is it easy to eat vegan in Naples?
Is pizza marinara vegan?
Yes. The EU specification lists tomatoes, salt, oregano, garlic and extra virgin olive oil, with no cheese. The name refers to sailors, and there is no fish in it.
Where can I get a vegan sfogliatella in Naples?
At Vegan Art on Via Duomo, a fully vegan bakery. The traditional sfogliatella is made with lard and ricotta.
Where can I eat vegan Neapolitan food?
At Arrecrià in Vomero, which cooks plant-based versions of Neapolitan classics, including pasta e patate with vegan provola.
Where can I eat vegan fried pizza in Naples?
At Isabella De Cham in the Sanità and OWAP on Via Foria, both with vegan fried pizzas from award-winning pizza makers.
Which Neapolitan dishes look vegetarian but are not?
La genovese is a beef sauce, minestra maritata is greens cooked with pork, stuffed escarole usually has anchovies, and taralli are made with lard.
Where can I eat vegan for dinner in Naples?
Arrecrià and Green M’ama are the fully vegan dinners, and any pizzeria will make you a marinara.