Best Vegan & Vegetarian Food in San Francisco 2025
All the best things you can cram in your mouth from someone who's eaten at over 200 places
I’ve eaten at a bit over 200 restaurants in SF in the couple years I’ve been here. By god there’s a lot of mediocre stuff out there, and the vegan and vegetarian food guides to the city will point you in those locations. Don’t worry babe, you’re with me now. I won’t do you dirty in the area of plant-based cuisine. This is a vegan guide. To all the vegetarians who have found their way here please know this is a warning and you should change your ways. I have only mentioned “vegetarian” in this guide for SEO reasons: Best vegetarian guide for SF (San Francisco)
If you want all my reviews on a convenient map, head to the main site at Vilf.org. And please share with your friends, this baby won’t grow itself.
Also please comment your suggestions for where I should eat, and I will eat there.
Here’s 9 delicious places in no particular order with great food that I unceremonially let slither down my esophagus in 2024. I will also be adding annoying subheadings for better SEO. You’re welcome.
1. Mensho Tokyo SF
Best vegan ramen in San Francisco
672 Geary St in the Tenderloin
Full Review — Mensho Tokyo Website
You ever had “Holy Shit!” ramen? You should. It’s good for you. This place opens its menu with 3 vegan ramens, all of them are great. The Vegan G.K.O has garlic five (5) ways!!!!
Also, check out their other restaurant Jikasei Mensho which only has one vegan option (yuzu dry ramen) but is extremely good.
2. Huangcheng Noodle House
Best vegan hand-pulled noodles in San Francisco
911 Washington St in Downtown Oakland
Full Review — Huangcheng Noodle House Website
This is worth getting the Bart to Oakland for. Make sure you get the Huangcheng Cold Noodles and ask for them hot. They are some of the best sesame noodles that exist. Cucumber salad is also good. And you can buy the chili oil they make. And bizarrely, they have a robot that serves you, it’s so out of place, incredible.
3. Chisai Sushi Club
Best vegan sushi omakase in San Francisco
3369 Mission St in Bernal Heights
Full Review — Chisai Sushi Club Website
Stop going to Shizen, go here instead. She’s a pricy boy but damn if it isn’t good. Lots of fun flavors and textures, lots of little dishes that they make for you one by one. I was genuinely amazed at a few of them. Excellent date night, try to sit at the counter. The chefs are all drinking beers with each other.
4. Arabian Nights
Best vegan Middle Eastern food in San Francisco
2345 Mission St in the Mission
Full Review — Arabian Nights Website
You enter the unmarked door on Mission St, you go through the main dining room to the back, and there’s the most beautiful patio in the world. The heaters are on. The free BYOB wine is flowing. The dishes are hitting the table. They’re smoking shisha (the server there has to test each one, he’s a smoking machine). Make sure you get the cauliflower, the makdous, and the hummus (it’s very rare I’ll recommend hummus, this one is so good). Each dish is under $10, this is a good find.
5. Four Kings
Best vegan Chinese food in San Francisco
710 Commercial St in Chinatown
Full Review — Four Kings Website
Trendy new Cantonese place that you need to get a recommendation for. But do it, it’s really good. You can ask for their vegan menu. I highly suggest getting the Sichuan cabbage and chiuchow olive green beans. There’s enough vegan options for 2/3 people.
6. Copra
Best vegan South Indian food in San Francisco
1700 Fillmore St in the Fillmore District
If you’ve lived in the Bay Area for any amount of time, then I’m sure you’ve amassed a whole bunch of Indian friends who do nothing but talk about how awful Indian food in SF is. This one though… they’re happy with. The only absolute must-get is the chutney palette. Honestly, you could just do that and a drink and it wouldn’t be too expensive. And maybe the Gods Own Coconut dessert made vegan. Otherwise, there’s so much vegan stuff. Go hog-wild.
7. Burmese Kitchen
Best Burmese food in San Francisco
3815 Geary Blvd in Inner Richmond
Full Review — Burmese Kitchen Website
This place is easily the best Burmese food in SF. Burma Love and Burma Superstar can take a god-damned seat. Here, you want to be salad maximizing. I highly recommend the tea leaf salad and tamarind leaf salad, though there’s a lot I haven’t tried yet. Also good squash curry and various applications of chickpea tofu like their falafel-like things. And $5.50 beers!!!
8. Beit Rima
Also the best vegan Middle Eastern food in San Francisco
86 Carl St in Cole Valley
Full Review — Beit Rima Website
Beit Rima is a bit fancier than Arabian Nights, and shines at some other things. They’ve got this thing called hamleh which is fresh chickpeas charred in a garlicy sauce. I’ve never had fresh chickpeas in my life, they’ve got this little inedible casing like edamame. Also their fresh bread is really good and covered in zaatar. There are two locations, the Cole Valley one is a lot nicer than the Castro one.
9. Tacos Oscar
The best vegan tacos in the San Francisco Bay Area
420 40th St in Temescal
Full Review — Tacos Oscar Website
This is one of those places that my friends wouldn’t shut up about until I went there. The fuckers were right. They have a bunch of vegan things, make sure you definitely get the charred broccoli tacos. I was on the fence by the sound of them but they’re really really good.
Thank you for reading. Comment woohoo if you got this far. Also actually post your favorite places so I will eat there.
For all my reviews and a handy map interface, go to Vilf.org
I really want to try Mensho
This is awesome! So many great new restaurants across SF