8 Best Vegetarian Restaurants in Sydney

We’ve recently made the decision to go vego. We asked our animal loving friends for their favorite places to eat out and have compiled our list of the top 8 best vegetarian restaurants in Sydney!

After toying with the idea all year, Victoria and I finally decided to commit to a vegetarian lifestyle. This was after much debate and deliberation. Back in January we did a short stint as vegan to test it out, but a trip to Singapore for business made it challenging to find vegan meals (we were totally unprepared) so we caved and got back on the meat bandwagon. Throughout the year we trialed meat free days and that worked pretty well. So much so, we questioned why we were even eating meat in the first place.

Was it a habit of convenience or did we really enjoy eating it?

After pondering this for some time, I came to the conclusion that it was bacon that I really loved eating. Come on, how good is bacon for breakfast?! But all the other cuts of meat I was eating it was simply out of habit and convenience.

Huh? But meat is so tasty!

Let’s face it; we all know that most restaurants have super limited vegetarian offerings on their menus. The usual main course options tend to consist of carbs. Things like hot chips, rice, gnocchi, pasta or my absolute least favorite (which appears on most menus!), the dreaded hot wet rice, otherwise known as risotto. You’ll tend to find some type of salad option on most menus but you’re running the gauntlet by choosing salad as a main. It’ll either come out as 90% lettuce, 5% sauce and the remaining 5% tiny morsels of other salad items that you have to use your fork to find. Pretty disappointing.

With vegetarian menu options in most establishments being so limited and boring, it can seem way more convenient to order something with meat or fish. Am I right?

So, we were at a point where we were eating meat free at home, and ordering meat or fish when eating out of sheer convenience.

So how do you go from loving bacon to being vegetarian?

The answer is simple. Documentaries.

Vic and I love a good doco! The more food documentaries we watched, the easier the decision to become a vegetarian was. The final nail in the coffin that meant saying goodbye to my love affair with bacon was the documentary film, Cowspiracy.

It’s not one of those documentaries that shows animal cruelty or one that demonstrates how the human body wasn’t designed to consume meat (we’ve watched all those too!). Cowspiracy looks at the issue of the survival of our planet. The simple fact is, the population is booming year on year and soon we won’t have enough space on the planet to feed everyone. The clincher for me was the destruction of the environment all around the world to farm livestock. I want to reduce my environmental footprint so animals like tigers, orangutans, and elephants have a home. After all, it’s their planet too.

You will no doubt have your own view on this, however this is our personal decision. Like I always say, opinions are like assholes, everyone has one.

Now you know a bit of the background as to why we’ve chosen to go vego, let’s get to the good stuff…where are the best vegetarian restaurants in Sydney?

When we first gave up the meat we obviously asked our mates for recommendations. Some we’ve hit up already, others are on our list and we’re eating our way through them all!

Here are the top 8 vegetarian restaurants in Sydney

Our advice, give them a whirl and go meat free for a change! You might be surprised at how good a meat free meal can be.

Nepalese Kitchen

This place isn’t strictly vegetarian, however they have an extensive offering of vegetarian dishes. This is a great choice if you’re going out to dinner with mates and they want to eat meat.

I recommend the Vegetable Dal Bhat Takari. Described as the traditional way of eating Nepalese food in the home, it consists of dal, rice, sautéed spinach, and tomato achar with a vegetable curry of your choice. Goes great with roti bread too.

Nepalese Kitchen

481 Crown St, Surry Hills

Soul Burger

Both our vegan and vegetarian mates are raving about this place and a quick squiz on Instagram has me drooling. All their burgers are plant based and look amazing.

Victoria, we need to get here ASAP!

Soul Burger is the first gourmet plant-based burger joint in Australia, and with burgers that look this good I imagine that you’ll soon see them popping up all over the place.

Soul Burger

The Spot, 49 Perouse Road, Randwick

3 Sadhana Kitchen

Known as Sydney’s first organic whole and raw food café, this place has a great reputation. When Victoria and I first went vegan, this was our first lunch stop in Sydney. They use all organic seasonal produce and the prices reflect that, but once you’ve taken your first bite I guarantee your taste buds will come alive!

They’re open from 9am – 4pm every day, but regardless of when you come just make sure you’ve left room for one of their raw vegan desserts (drool alert!). My all time fave is the banoffee pie!

Sadhana Kitchen

147 Enmore Road, Enmore

Yulli’s

Even though this place is literally around the corner from us, we still haven’t checked it out. Perhaps because it’s a vegetarian restaurant slash bar and we’re currently on a one-year non-drinking stint…regardless, our vegetarian mates rave about this place, so it’s at the top of our must-eat-at list!

Yulli’s also hosts live music, and have a range of local micro brews on tap. Sounds like a great night out to me!

Yulli’s

417 Crown St, Surry Hills

Banana Blossom Asian Salads

You can hit up Banana Blossom at three locations in Sydney. Bondi Beach, Mona Vale and Manly. They’ve got a great offering of vegan, vegetarian and meat based salads that are super filling, tasty and fresh with an authentic taste of Asia.

I love their mantra, Eat More Green! And you definitely experience that when you eat their food. Delicious!

I can’t go past the “Tokyo Classic” with Tofu (pictured above). Chinese cabbage, avocado, cucumber, cherry tomato, green tea soba noodles, Asian herbs, Asian salad mix with creamy white sesame dressing and black sesame seed.

Banana Blossom Asian Salads

18/2a Jaques Ave, Bondi

Bodhi in the Park

Who loves Yum Cha? Everyone right?!

In the heart of Sydney you’ll find Bodhi Restaurant Bar nestled amongst the trees in Cook and Phillip Park. I went here first when I was a meat eater and found it to be fantastic.

For lunch they serve traditional yum-cha complete with vegan and all-organic produce. So unlike most yum-chas where when you stuff your face (because I can’t say no to the trays of food they bring around) you don’t waddle away feeling sick and full to the brim with greasy food.

They also do dinner, again all vegan and organic, but it’s a la carte so you can order your favorite dishes from the menu. I hear their Peking ‘duck’ is amazing! So good you wouldn’t even know the duck isn’t really duck! In my meat eating days I loved Peking duck so I’m super keen to try this. Mmmmm!

Yum Cha is open 7 days a week 11am – 4pm.

Bodhi Restaurant | Bar

Lower Mezzanine Level of Cook and Philip Park, 2-4 College St

Between St Mary’ Catherdral and the swimming pool

Suzy Spoon’s Vegetarian Butcher

All of our non-meat eating friends are raving about this place.

Suzy Spoon’s have a café on site plus stuff you can buy to cook at home. This place is great if you’re looking to satisfy you’re craving for a vegan schnitzel parmigiana!

As a meat eater, my favourite comfort food was Spaghetti Bolognese, so I’m pretty excited to taste Suzy Spoon’s vegan Homestyle Bolognese.

Suzy Spoon’s Vegetarian Butcher

22-24 King St, Newtown

Harry’s Bondi

If you read our blog or follow us on social media you’ll know that breakfast is our favorite meal to eat out. It’s only fitting that we feature our top pick for brekkie in our list of the 8 best vegetarian restaurants in Sydney!

Harry’s in North Bondi do some epic vegetarian options for breakfast, they’re also open for lunch, but really why eat lunch when you can eat breakfast?!

Try the house favorite quinoa and feta fritters or go for the crispy rolled egg, with black beans, avocado and lime (on the menu it comes with chorizo but swap it out for mushrooms!).

Grab a sweet treat for later too. They’ve got a delicious selection of raw treats that will have you coming back for more!

Harry’s Bondi

2/136 Wairoa Avenue, Bondi Beach