Sydney Eat Street: Best vegan restaurants in Sydney
Whether you’re a practising vegan or just curious about meat-free alternatives, there are plenty of places for clever and creative plant-based fare.
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YULLI’S
Look for the pink sign on Crown St, and you’ll know you’re home. That’s essentially what Yulli’s owner, Karl Cooney and his crew have set as their objective.
“For us, experience is key,” Karl says.
“We aim to provide the best we can in all aspects of what we do from food, through drinks and on to service in an environment that feels more like our living room than a restaurant.
“This hopefully leaves people with the memory of Yulli’s as an all-around good time.”
Yulli’s is a forerunner of vegan venues in Sydney. It was established in 2008 as a craft beer pub (they brew their own beers at their own brewery/restaurant) along with local wines, but with a dearth of tasty Asian-inspired meat-free dishes, their food became the standout.
Don’t miss the edamame and coconut money pockets, Korean fried broccolini with sticky chilli sauce, toasted coconut & crushed almond or crispy tofu with green papaya, Asian herbs and toasted peanut salad.
For those that can’t decide or pretty much want a bit of everything, there is a four-course banquet menu that includes dessert ($44pp).
— 417 Crown St, Surry Hills; yullis.com.au
BAD HOMBRES
Chilli “Non” Carne has to be one of the best-named dishes in Sydney. Just saying it, should put a smile on your face.
It’s a signature dish at Bad Hombres, a vegan Mexican restaurant in Surry Hills.
Chilli “Non” Carne substitutes ground beef with shiitake mushrooms and sunflower seeds — and it’s delicious.
“We love working with plant-based food for ethical and sustainable reasons,” says manager Jose Artidiello.
“But even more so than that, we love it because of the amazing array of ingredients and flavour combinations that we can create from scratch. You wouldn’t believe what’s possible to replicate without using animal products, and without altering the authenticity of the dishes.”
It’s not your typical Mexican restaurant, not just because of the casual industrial decor with an 80s playlist but considering so much of South American food is plant-based, it could be said though that much of the menu is actually traditional Mexican food.
Try the mushroom ceviche with a soy milk dressing or the nachos topped with a “cheddar cheese” made with cashew cream, plus on the beverage side, they have a strong focus on natural and low-intervention wines and tequila-based cocktails.
— 40 Reservoir Rd, Surry Hills; badhombres.com.au
BODHI RESTAURANT AND BAR
Bodhi Restaurant and Bar has been setting the standard for plant-based dining since 1988. It’s not just its menu but the setting that rounds out the experience.
Nestled into Sydney’s lush Cook & Phillip Park, Bodhi sits amid regal Moreton Bay fig trees, their sturdy branches provide a veritable canopy over the expansive outdoor seating area.
At the helm of this serene establishment is Heaven Leigh, a third-generation restaurateur and plant-based entrepreneur.
“As a vegan restaurant, our food is created without using animal products or by-products but we also follow the Buddhist philosophy of avoiding onion, garlic, shallots, leeks and chives – ingredients most people associate with flavour so we need to be more creative and smart in our cooking to find the right flavour combinations using the best organic plant-based ingredients where possible while ensuring everything looks pretty on the plate and is of high-end restaurant quality,” Heaven says.
“Luckily we have some incredibly talented chefs in our kitchen, who are passionate about making plant-based ingredients the hero of every dish. We love surprising people with our food and challenging the idea of what plant-based living, looks and tastes like.”
Don’t just take her word for it, rather try some dishes that have made Bodhi a favourite for more than 30 years, such as the original vegan Peking duck pancakes and sweet Japanese pumpkin dumplings, mixed in with new and surprising additions like the cute steamed black bean sesame hedgehog for yum cha and a creative watermelon tuna salad (looks like tuna, has the texture of tuna, but it’s watermelon).
Round that out with an innovative Vegan Buddhist Bloody Mary cocktail created with a housemade Worcestershire recipe minus fish sauce, garlic or onion, but still with plenty of punch. There’s always something new on the menu, so no wonder people travel from near and far for Bodhi’s vegan fare again and again and again.
— 2-4 College Street, Sydney; bodhirestaurant.com.au
OH MY DAYS
Busting myths about vegan food is Oh My Days’ owner and head chef David Rigby’s passion.
“There is a definite misconception that vegan food is tasteless and boring, that it cannot traverse across the spectrum of the populations tastebuds, limited only to people who are vegan,” David says.
“However, we have found that applying the same approach as you would to traditional dishes, you can achieve the same results with vegan food.
Case in point our croissants are treated the exact same way as butter croissants: from the lamination to the type of flour, the temperature of the fat and the correct technique, the same results can be achieved without compromising flavour.”
The Oh My Days menu is 100 per cent plant-based and made up of equal parts French-inspired baked goods and Central-American dishes such as the jackfruit brisket burrito or quinoa ceviche.
“We have seen a definite increase in popularity over the last year of trading,” David says.
“And our no-compromise approach to pastries and baking is appreciated by the wider community”.
— 99 Glebe Point Rd, Glebe; ohmydays.com.au
YULLI’S BREW
When iconic vegan restaurant Yulli’s began serving their own brews, demand outgrew their production space so made the big call and opened their own brewery where they could continue to make customer favourites but also create seasonal and small batch blends, in conjunction with its own restaurant.
Co-owner Karl Cooney says: “All the food at the brewery is vegan along with the beer. A lot and I of our staff also eat that way but vegan is not our point of being, we just like to make good food and good beer that happens to contain no animal products. yes, we are vegan but no, we don’t like to shout it to the ends of the earth.”
Keep an eye on their calendar of events for multicultural cuisine degustation dinners with matching beers.
— 75a Burrows Rd, Alexandria; yullisbrews.com.au
FLAVE
The intention may be there, but when you’re just too darn tired to go out to eat much less cook take advantage of the recently launched 100 per cent plant-based meal delivery service suited to everyone from devout vegans to those just dabbling in the plant-based diet.
The recipes have developed by Scott Findlay who trained under Gordon Ramsey and later served as private chef to Sir Paul McCartney (a pioneer of the Meatless Mondays Movement) as well as ‘flexitarians’ Rihanna, Beyonce, Madonna, and Elton John.
Flave’s expanding menu of fresh, ready-to-heat-and-eat plant-based breakfast, lunch, and dinner meals are inspired by the chef’s international travels and include such dishes as Jamaican Jerk not-so-chicken, The Italian Job meatless balls and Mou-Ssa-Ka’ (a plant-based spin on the Greek favourite).
Choose one of the flexible, no-lock in subscriptions of seven, 10, 15 or 18 meals a box that provide options for the curious to the committed.
PEPPE’S
The name alone hints to an Italian restaurant offering housemade pastas and traditional desserts, which at Peppe’s that exactly what you get with such delicious dishes as spaghetti Bolognese and tiramisu.
But what’s left off the menu is mention that it’s made up entirely of plant-based dishes including their signature pasta: gnocchi. Or more specifically, head chef Joel Bennett’s gnocchi funghi – a combination of mushrooms prepared in a cauliflower puree. Follow that with the cashew-based cream Tiramisu. Vegan has never tasted better.
— 261 Bondi Rd, Bondi; peppelovesgnocchi.com.au
LENTIL AS ANYTHING
On the trails of its sister outlet in Melbourne, this eclectic eatery is known not just for being an impressive social enterprise run by volunteers with a pay-as-you-feel or pay-what-you-can approach but also for its ever-changing vegan menu, each dish made from market-fresh such as the always popular Sir Lankan Curry Plate.
While staff is unpaid, it is an opportunity for employees to gain work experience which in addition to leaving with a new-found affinity for vegan food, often leads to jobs in kitchens all around Sydney.
— 391 King St, Newtown; lentilasanything.com
WHAT’S FRESH
ALIBI BAR & KITCHEN, MISTER PERCY AND OVOLO HOTELS
Located inside Ovolo, a luxury boutique hotel that runs the length of Woolloomooloo Finger Wharf sits Alibi Bar & Kitchen, a chic vegan restaurant and bar that boasts a premium menu created by US plant-based chef, restaurateur and pioneer Matthew Kenney.
Developed in line with Ovolo Group’s commitment to guests’ demands, they have recently gone one step further and taken consumer interest in plant-based cuisine and sustainable living to the next level with all their Australian hotels and restaurants going vegetarian for a full year, including Mister Percy, an Italian wine bar in Pyrmont that serves up daily housemade pasta and antipasti.
— alibibar.com.au, misterpercy.com.au, ovolohotels.com
Originally published as Sydney Eat Street: Best vegan restaurants in Sydney
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