20+ Healthy, Tasty Vegetarian Restaurants in Lisbon, Portugal

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There are too many vegetarian restaurants in Lisbon to count – in fact, the city ranks among the top in all of Europe for vegetarian and vegan restaurants per capita.  Vegetarian restaurants in Lisbon can be found in nearly every neighborhood, dishing up a huge range of plates from meatless version of Portuguese classics to innovative plant-based fusion cuisine.

I stayed in Lisbon for about two weeks, splitting my stay across properties in three different areas. Since none of the places I stayed had a kitchen, I was able to get out and eat two or three different vegetarian meals every day, never repeating the same restaurant twice (even if I really wanted to!).  The things I do for research!

As with all of my vegetarian city guides, in this article I will share many of my favorite purely vegetarian and vegan restaurants in Lisbon, and I will also include some restaurants that serve meat or fish too. Although I haven’t eaten any meat in nearly two decades, I know what it’s like to travel with omnivore friends, family and partners… and I also know that many restaurants that serve meat also serve amazing vegetarian and vegan dishes.

Below, I will make it clear which Lisbon restaurants are totally vegetarian or vegan, and which ones just serve great plant-based options alongside other dishes. If I’ve missed your favorite vegetarian-friendly and vegan-friendly restaurant in Lisbon, scroll down to the comments and let me know where I need to visit the next time I’m in town!

Legumi Vegan Sushi

This is my top recommendation for a vegan restaurant in Lisbon!

You must make a reservation if you want to eat at this tiny vegan sushi restaurant near Lisbon’s Santos district.  Everything here is 100% plant-based (vegan) but it’s perfect for vegetarians and even omnivores as well. This was the best sushi I’ve ever had, and as a bonus the portions are exceptionally generous and the staff are super-friendly.

I had the “twelve-piece platter” (talk about a generous twelve pieces!) and literally every single piece of sushi was delicious. As well, they serve an epic sushi boat for two or more people, with more pieces of sushi than I could count. They also have great appetizers like vegan gyoza and edamame, as well as Japanese beers and local drinks.

(By the way, Santos ranks #1 on my list of the best areas to stay in Lisbon!)

AO 26 Lisboa

To be clear, I am not a vegan.  I have been vegetarian for almost twenty years, but I do still eat dairy products.  That being said, many of the best vegetarian-friendly restaurants in Lisbon happen to be fully vegan, and AO 26 is one of those restaurants. Like Legumi Vegan Sushi, AO26 is extremely popular and you’ll need to reserve if you want to guarantee a spot. I arrived without a reservation right as they opened for dinner, and they were able to squeeze me in (but only for 90 minutes, as the table was booked for the rest of the night).

You’ll find this vegan restaurant in Lisbon at the border of the Bairro Alto and Chiado neighborhoods, in a gorgeous, recently-renovated glass-walled space overlooking an interior courtyard garden.  This is upscale vegan cuisine with a strong focus on reinterpreting traditional Portuguese dishes as modern plant-based plates.

I wasn’t particularly hungry, so I opted for their couvert, which was a plate of marinated olives, homemade bread and vegan butter.  I snacked on that while I waited for my main course (shown above), called an “Islet”, or “Islander”. That featured a vegan sausage medallion served atop a potato pancake, garnished with pineapple chutney and spinach cream.

AO26 also has vegan versions of famous Portuguese sandwiches like bifana and franceshina, which are served on their lunch menu.

 

 

Kong – Food Made with Compassion

I thought I’d made a mistake when I walked inside this restaurant and saw a menu with ingredients like eggs, octopus, steak and fish, but (I’m sure you guessed already!) Kong Lisboa serves up vegan interpretations of these traditional Portuguese foods… without writing vegan all over their menu.

I couldn’t bring myself to try the vegan octopus (as interesting as it sounds, I was squeamish about octopus well before I gave up meat and seafood) but the fried “fish” definitely caught my eye.  It was made from celeriac (celery root) wrapped in seaweed and then deep friend, and it was served with a delicious tomato-bean rice, salad and vegan tartar sauce.

If you visit Kong at lunch on a weekday they should have a “menu of the day” based on which local ingredients are in season, but if you happen to visit at another time (like I did) the menu still offers a good range of a la carte dishes.

daTerra Bairro Alto

I actually recycled this photo from my guide to vegetarian restaurants in Porto, because daTerra is a growing chain of vegan restaurants that you can find across the country (Porto, Lisbon and Faro).  I ate at their location in Bairro Alto, and they have a second location in Lisbon at the Park of Nations (Parque das Nações).

The best time to eat at daTerra is at lunch, when they serve an expansive vegan lunch buffet. It’s a bit cheaper on weekdays (probably as they get more business from local office workers). Expect to find a daily soup, numerous different salads, small appetizers, bread and six to eight different hot entrees. Drinks are dessert are not included, but I certainly would not have had room for dessert after filling up on dishes like sweet-and-sour Mongolian seitan or creamy vegetable korma curry.

A Colmeia

An alternative vegetarian buffet in Lisbon is A Colmeia. The buffet here is full-service and cafeteria-style: you indicate the dishes that you want and they will be scooped onto a plate for you. It’s authentic, homestyle cooking (something I miss a lot during long trips!) and many of the dishes are vegan, macrobiotic and/or organic.

This is a great option for vegan backpackers and other vegetarian travelers on a budget, as you can easily get a filling, balanced lunch for less than €10.  They’re not open for dinner, so make sure to visit over the lunch hour.

Honest Greens

I didn’t recycle this photo from my Porto restaurant guide, despite having eaten at Honest Greens there as well. This Spanish salad restaurant has recently expanded into both the UK and Portugal, and they now have four locations in the Portuguese capital.

I visited Honest Greens in Santos, near the Cais do Sodre station (and near Time Out Market, shown below). I ordered a salad I hadn’t tried before: the Wild Mediterranean with avocado and spirulina cream, grilled portobello mushrooms, avocado, arugula, sweet chili sweet potato, cucumber and sesame relish, sundried tomato sauce and hemp seeds, served on a bed of cilantro-cauliflower rice. Since I’m mindful about protein I also added on a small portion of their herb tofu.

One of my favorite things about Honest Greens is their water bar, and I am not ashamed to say that when it was 42° Celsius in Lisbon and I walked two kilometers at the Parque das Nações to the waterfront walkway, only to find it closed, I headed straight for the nearby Honest Greens to cool off with their fruity, herby water for almost a full hour.  If you are watching your coffee and alcohol intake but enjoy meeting a friend for a drink and a conversation, Honest Greens is an excellent option.

Honest Greens isn’t fully vegetarian but they have a wide variety of dishes that are vegan or vegetarian, or that can be easily adapted to become meatless or plant-based.

Time Out Market Lisboa (Vegetarian & Vegan Options)

My second hotel in Lisbon was located a few blocks away from the famous Time Out Market in the Cais do Sodre and Santos neighborhoods. This is the first food hall opened by the Time Out Group, who have since opened other locations in places like New York and Montreal.

Inside the Time Out Market in Lisbon there are 36 different food stalls and restaurants, ranging from haute cuisine to simple take-away snacks.  I walked around and checked out all of the different menus, and I would estimate that about half of the stalls offer something that is either vegetarian or vegan.

Personally, I was tempted by the croquette stall.  The last time I had a croquette was about a month before I became vegetarian, on my very first night in Barcelona, Spain. Since then I’ve avoided croquettes because I’ve never trusted them to be fully vegetarian, but here at the Time Out Market they clearly indicated which were filled with meat, fish or poultry, and which were vegetarian (one option) or vegan (one option). I ordered their combo plate for a very affordable €5, featuring one of each atop a bed of salad.

The Green Affair Chiado

For my last night in Lisbon I wanted to stick close to my hotel in the Bairro Alto, so I strolled down the hill a bit to The Green Affair Chiado (I have no idea if there are Green Affairs in other neighborhoods), a fully vegan restaurant with a broad, interesting menu.  The staff here spoke the least English of any restaurant I visited in Portugal, but that wasn’t a problem since I could trust everything was vegan and the language barrier wouldn’t result in me getting a plate of chicken or something!

I started with the couvert here too, which included homemade bread, vegan cream cheese and marinated lupini beans. For my main dish I ordered the vegan katsu curry (shown above), which was delicious. It featured breaded vegetables and tofu cubes on a bed of rice topped with sweet curry. Half the bowl was filled with salad, so the dish didn’t come across as too heavy. I didn’t have room for dessert, but I would love to go back for their vegan pineapple-coconut panna cotta.

Cantina Indiana

Several years ago I spent two months traveling in India and was blown away by all of the delicious vegetarian food (seriously, I scope out flight prices to India at least once every month or two, dreaming about spending $3,000 on airfare to eat unforgettable $1 street food).

The most authentic vegetarian Indian food in Lisbon is served at Cantina Indiana, a restaurant inside the city’s Hindu temple.  For less than €10 you can load up at their buffet featuring rice, lentils, curried vegetables, flatbreads, salads and garnishes. Many of the main dishes are vegan, and the staff are happy to guide you towards dishes that suit your dietary requirements.

Os Tibetanos

Portugal has a large Tibetan and Nepali community, and some of the best vegetarian food that I ate in the country was at restaurants owned by people who had immigrated from this region to Portugal. In Lisbon, the best Tibetan vegetarian restaurant is Os Tibetanos, located on the north side of the city’s botanical gardens.

The menu here features both Tibetan and international dishes, and includes both vegetarian and vegan options (no meat). Of course, you have to try their momos (try the spinach and cheese if you’re vegetarian, or the spinach and tofu version if you’re vegan).  Each day they offer a set lunch menu with the daily curry, dessert and mineral water, or you can always order a la carte.

Valdo Gatti Pizza

I am aware that most vegetarians go to a regular pizza restaurant and adapt one of the dishes to make it meatless or even vegan. I’m the opposite – I go to a pizzeria like Valdo Gatti that has a wide range of vegan pizzas, and I ask them to adapt the vegan pizza to make it vegetarian because I can’t resist that beautiful cheese. 😉

This is the vegan zucchini pizza with green veggie sauce, zucchini, mushrooms, onion, capers, mint, basil and lemon. Since I’m not vegan, I asked them to add mozzarella to make it vegetarian.  It was quite a good pizza and I’d definitely go back to try one of their two other vegan pizzas, or one of the three on the menu that is naturally vegetarian.

The downside of Valdo Gatti is that they are not particularly solo-traveler friendly. I used their website to put my name in their virtual queue, clearly indicating that I was just one person. I quickly received a notification that they were ready to seat me, but when I arrived the host acted like it was inconvenient to have a solo diner and he sat me at the bar, near the hot pizza oven. If you’re solo, consider doing takeaway or going elsewhere.

Cheeky Leeks

One thing I didn’t eat enough of in Lisbon is veggie burgers!  I’m a huge veggie burger aficionada, and the more unique and unusual the veggie burger, the more likely I am to try it!

Cheeky Leeks is a vegetarian restaurant in Lisbon that specializes in veggie burgers. Their most famous burger is the “Cheeky Tagus”, which features beet bread, wasabi mayonnaise, toasted pumpkin seeds and caramelized onion, all common ingredients in Portuguese cuisine.

Personally, though, I’d probably opt for their Cheeky BBQ burger, with a patty made from seitan, brown mushrooms and smoked tofu, topped with caramelized onions, cucumber pickle, homemade barbecue sauce and vegan mayonnaise. Guy Fieri would be jealous.

KOA Juices & Cocktails

KOA is a juice bar and cocktail bar in Lisbon that also serves light breakfast and lunch dishes. Most of the dishes are vegetarian or vegan, though they do have a few small plates with Portuguese ham or bacon. I had a beautiful salad with mâche, cucumber, mango, radish, pumpkin and toasted almonds, but I was also very tempted by passionfruit yogurt bowl with mango, raspberry, coconut and lime zest. Overall it’s just light, bright, flavorful food that feels good to eat.

KOA is located directly in front of the meeting point for the Alfama Free Tour offered by Take Tours Lisboa.  I highly recommend visiting for a leisurely light lunch, getting hydrated (and using their washroom!) before you join the walking tour group.

Manjerica Vegetarian Restaurant

After I rode the historic #28 all the way from Campo Ourique to Martim Moniz, I was extremely hungry. Fortunately, one of the best vegetarian restaurants in Lisbon, Manjerica, is just a few blocks away from Martim Moniz.

Manjerica’s menu is completely vegetarian, with many vegan dishes on the menu as well. I was definitely interested in trying their feijaoda, or black bean stew, made with roasted pumpkin, smoked vegan sausage and rice, but I ultimately decided the weather was too hot for such a heavy dish. Instead, I ordered their avocado toast with a side of sweet potato fries, plus a stand-out glass of their passionfruit lemonade.

LOCAL

Billing itself as Lisbon’s go-to restaurant for healthy food (including vegan, vegetarian and meat-based options), LOCAL has opened three restaurants across Lisbon and a fourth in Cascais (which is probably a better option than the restaurant I ate at in Cascais – see below).

At the Santos location that I visited there were nine meatless main courses on the menu, ranging from a crispy tofu bowl to  a classic Greek salad with hummus.  You can also design your own poke bowl on a base of rice, quinoa or zucchini noodles,. Everything on the menu at LOCAL was clearly labeled as vegetarian, vegan, lactose-free or wheat-free.

Machimbombo

I need to explain something about this photo.  Machimbombo is a brunch restaurant by day and cocktail bar by night, and their “thing” is that literally every surface in the entire restaurant is vivid, electric fuchsia. The un-retouched version of this photo from my iPhone camera just looks like a blurry photo of a close-up of a Barbie dress or something. I spent about ten minutes editing it just to get the version you see above… I know it’s not perfect but at least it’s not 99% pink!

I wanted to go out for brunch in Bairro Alto on the weekend, and a lot of restaurants had a long queue or weren’t accepting solo diners. I stumbled upon Machimbombo and decided to go in (partly due to that bright pink interior!). It was towards the end of my trip and I was craving homemade food, and I thought that their grilled cheese sandwich with egg, cheddar cheese and tomato chutney would taste like something I’d make in my own kitchen, so I ordered that and a green smoothie.  Both were really good and I was glad that I hadn’t queued somewhere else for a brunch that might not have been as good.

Now that I’m home I’m looking at their menu again (yes, it’s bright pink) and I don’t think they serve any meat – this appears to be a fully-vegetarian brunch restaurant and cocktail bar. Yay!

Miolo (Belem)

I’m including both Belem and Cascais in this post, even though I don’t think the latter is “technically” in Lisbon.

After queuing in the hot sun for almost two hours to visit the Jeronimos Monastery in Belem, I was in the mood for a cool, refreshing lunch in an air-conditioned room. Fortunately I found Miolo, a cute little brunch restaurant just a few blocks away from the monastery.

The menu here features a lot of sandwiches, salads and toasts, but even though it was early afternoon I couldn’t resist a breakfast dish of yogurt with fresh fruit and granola.  I had an ice-cold glass of lemonade on the side and felt cool for the first time in about four hours.

Miolo has a few non-vegetarian dishes on the menu, but there is ample choice for both vegetarians and vegans (and yes, their coffee drinks can be made with a plant-based milk!).

House of Wonders (Cascais)

I can only recommend eating here for the novelty, not because the food was especially good.

House of Wonders is a fully vegetarian restaurant in Cascais, just outside of Lisbon. It’s located in the historic center, and the draw here is that there is no menu – every day they put a bunch of dishes on a table and you “order with your eyes”.  (You don’t get the dish from the table – they remake a new one for you in the kitchen.)

It’s certainly unusual for a sit-down restaurant, but unfortunately I found that my salad (shown above) looked better than it tasted. Not shown is the two inches of water in the bottom of the bowl, or the carafe from which my tropical juice was poured (I had expected fresh-squeezed).

You’ll find stuff like salads, sandwiches, curries, noodle bowls and rice bowls on the menu here, and you can ask the owner about the ingredients if you’re curious (but it gets a bit awkward asking too many questions as the line forms behind you).

Scoop n Dough Vegan Ice Cream

I saw online that Scoop n Dough had been voted the world’s best vegan ice cream for several years in a row, so I had to stop by and see what all the fuss was about.  I admit that it was pretty good (I had the pistachio and dark chocolate flavors) but I don’t think it was enough to persuade me to give up regular gelato for the rest of my life.

Vegan Nata

Just because you’re vegan doesn’t mean you have to miss out on Portugal’s famous pastel de nata. Vegan Nata is located in Campo Ourique (if you’re reading closely, you’ll already know that’s one end of the historic #28 tram) and they have a completely plant-based menu of Portuguese treats and baked goods.

Before you go, check out all of my Portugal travel tips and see what I’ve learned from traveling as a vegetarian for almost twenty years and to 70+ countries.

I’ve also got a ten-day Portugal itinerary that you can follow by bus or train (no rental car required!) and a new curated list of the top ten excursions and tours I went on during my two months in Portugal.

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