Recently, the vegetarian and vegan restaurant scene in Dresden, Germany has experienced a boom. I spent just over a week in the city, and although I tried to eat at a vegetarian restaurant in Dresden at least once a day (purely for research!), I still left the Saxon city knowing that I’d have to come back to eat some more!
Vegetarian restaurants in Dresden are great because they serve a wide range of dishes, ranging from meatless interpretations of traditional German dishes to international cuisine to home-style cooking just like Oma used to make. Personally, I was a huge fan of all the delicious vegetarian brunch options in the Neustadt district, and I also appreciated the opportunity to try plant-based versions of sweet and savory Saxon favorites. In this guide I’ll share some of the best vegetarian restaurants in Dresden, where you too can sample these meat-free meals.
To be clear, this list is not complete! I stayed in a very cute apartment inside Dresden’s art passage and cooked many of my meals in the apartment kitchen. Also, I want to clarify that the list includes a mix of 100% vegan restaurants, 100% vegetarian restaurants, and some vegetarian- and vegan-friendly restaurants for those of us who are traveling with omnivores but still want to eat well!
Steffenhagen – Vegan Schnitzel in Dresden
You definitely need a reservation at this popular vegan schnitzel restaurant in Dresden’s Neustadt neighborhood. You can book online on their website, or pop by when you’re in the neighborhood.
You could start your meal with a small plate to share (expect to find dishes like melon carpaccio and stuffed herb crepes) but the real start of the show here is the vegan schnitzel. They always have a basic vegan schnitzel on the menu (served with fried potatoes and vegan aioli), as well as a daily special. At the time of my visit it was chanterelle mushroom, so I had a schnitzel with vegan chanterelle cream sauce and fried potatoes.
You’ll also find main dishes like a veggie burger, vegan goulash and chili tacos on the menu, but I highly recommend the schnitzel!
Sprout – Plant-Based Lunch Restaurant
Sprout was located between my apartment in the art passage and the nearest major supermarket, so I walked past it at least once a day. Unfortunately, since they’re only open from 12:00 to 15:00 on weekdays, I usually walked past when they were closed. Finally, on my last full day in Dresden I made a point of returning to the Neustadt area to visit Sprout for lunch.
The concept here is pretty simple – you pay for a normal (€13) or large (€16.50) bowl and the staff will load it up with your choice of hot and cold dishes from their weekly assortment. All of the food here is vegetarian, and most of it is vegan.
Warm dishes include things like oven-roasted potatoes, a chickpea-smoked tofu curry and quinoa pilaf. Cold choices may include dishes like panzanella, Greek salad with feta, or roasted beet and pear salad. They also whip up different dips and sauces each week that you can drizzle on top.
The bowl shown in the photo above is their normal size, which was absolutely enough for a filling lunch.
Der Dicke Schmidt – Vegan Donair
Confession: I’ve been a vegetarian so long that I don’t know the difference between donair, kebab, gyro or any other “meat” on a stick that gets shaved into bread. Fortunately, when the restaurant is 100% vegan, it doesn’t matter!
Located just down the street from the Kunsthofpassage in Dresden’s Neustadt neighborhood, Der Dicke Schmidt serves three types of mock meats: seitan-based kebab, soy-based gyros and pea proten-based “chicken”. You can have it on pita bread, in a wrap or on top of a baked potato, and then add on toppings like herb sauce, tzatziki, hummus, fried onions, olives and vegan feta.
The restaurant has both indoor and outdoor seating, and the dishes are ideal for taking to go. If you’re not staying nearby you could bring it up the street to the Alaunpark for a picnic.
I also had great vegan donair in Leipzig – you might also want to read my guide to vegetarian restaurants in Leipzig!
Café Continental – Vegetarian Brunch
Of all the cities I’ve visited in Europe, Dresden has the heartiest brunch scene. In the Neustadt neighborhood there are countless restaurants dishing up huge brunch platters, and the most popular brunch spot of all has to be Cafe Continental.
The menu here is focused on big brunch plates, many of which are vegetarian (or can easily be adapted). Some examples include:
- The Vegetarian – Shown above, this was yogurt with fresh fruit and muesli, two kinds of cheese, a hard-boiled egg (I swapped for fried), homemade jam, bread and butter.
- The Blogger – Avocado toast with tomato and cream cheese, served with fruit salad with yogurt and chia seeds
- The French – An assortment of French, Mediterranean and goat cheese, with homemade jam, fig mustard and butter, served with a croissant, ciabatta and fruit garnish.
To clarify, these are plates for one person (I know that because there was a separate option for “breakfast for two”!).
Dresden’s Café Continental also has homemade cakes that change each day, lots of coffee and tea options, plus fresh juices and smoothies.
This restaurant gets very busy, so book a table online via their website before your visit, or pop by if you’re in the area to book for the next morning.
Lloyd’s Cafe and Bar – More Vegetarian Brunch!
This is the brunch section of this guide, and the next brunch spot that we’re going to check out is Lloyd’s Cafe and Bar in Dresden’s Neustadt area (just a few blocks from the restaurants above and below it!). Lloyd’s gets just as busy as Cafe Continental, so book a table in advance on their website.
The vegan and vegetarian dishes here are clearly labeled on the menu, and include options like:
- Without Sausage – Shown above, it comes with a cheese assortment, jam, chocolate-hazelnut cream, fruit salad, butter and a bread basket.
- Healthy – Hummus, pepper almond spread, carrot coconut turmeric spread, smoked tofu, antipasti vegetables, fruit salad, margarine, vegan scrambled eggs, jam and a bread basket (vegan)
- Vitality – Oatmeal prepared with oat milk, flax seeds, hazelnuts and fresh fruit (vegan)
Breakfast is served until 2:00 pm, but they also have lunch and dinner options available from noon onward. In addition to a seasonal menu that changes with the weather, you can expect to find vegan and vegetarian options like spaghetti primavera, panzanella salad and mango-curry soup with tofu.
scheunecafé – 100% Vegetarian Restaurant
Apparently the name of this popular breakfast and brunch spot in Neustadt isn’t capitalized, so I’m staying true to their branding. It’s also the last brunch spot on this list, I promise!
I ate at scheunecafe in Dresden in August, 2025, but my understanding is that after my visit they moved to a new location a few blocks away (but still in Neustadt). Currently, they are open for dinner and drinks from Tuesday to Saturday, plus they’re open for brunch on the weekend. Check their website or Google Maps for current hours, and make a reservation (by email) if you want to visit!
This is a 100% vegetarian restaurant in Dresden, with a few good vegan options on the menu as well. Above, I had their “vital breakfast”, with fresh fruit, bircher museli, plain yogurt and orange juice (plus a coffee, of course). They also have vegetarian breakfasts inspired by the Middle East (shakshuka) and India (paratha), plus a vegan platter.
Dinner options here are equally diverse, featuring dishes like veggie burgers (made from sweet potato or falafel patties), curries and salads. A unique feature here is the small children’s menu, with options like simple pasta dishes and a potato pancake for smaller appetites.
Watzke am Goldenen Reiter – Veggie-Friendly Brewery
Did I mention that it was pouring rain for most of the week I spent in Dresden, even though it was the middle of summer? There was one particularly rainy afternoon where I simply couldn’t walk another step in the pouring rain, so I ducked into the nearest restaurant I could find: Watzke am Goldenen Reiter. I wasn’t even hungry, but I just wanted to get out of the rain for a few minutes.
Since I was between meals, I just had a pretzel (fresh out of the oven!) and a beer flight from this brewery beside Dresden’s famous Golden Rider statue. The pretzel was good, the beer was good, and the service was lovely.
I’m flagging this restaurant on the list as I noticed that they had quite a few interesting vegan and vegetarian options on their menu. I got the impression that the menu might have changed seasonally, but current offerings include a pumpkin cream soup, caramelized goat cheese salad, vegan vegetable curry and spinach dumplings in “mountain cheese sauce”. An English menu is available and the vegetarian and vegan dishes are clearly labeled.
Lila Soße – Art Passage Cuisine
I need to make it abundantly clear that the service I received at this restaurant was easily the worst service I’ve received at any restaurant in the past five years (and probably longer, but I can’t remember that far back). I have no idea if it was because I was a solo female, or Canadian, or something else, but I can only recommend this restaurant to people who wouldn’t be bothered by being ignored and disrespected throughout their meal, then asked for a tip by the manager.
If you’re cool with that then Lila Soße is a popular restaurant inside the Kunsthofpassage in Dresden. It has a warm, intimate indoor area and, in good weather, a terrace that sprawls over the cobblestone alley (albeit a bit tipsily). The concept here is that they have some tapas-style small plates in glass jars, plus a rotating selection of seasonal entrees. You can always expect to find at least one vegetarian starter and main on the menu, and often you’ll find more than one.
I started with their chilled beet salad and then had one of the daily main dishes, a vegetarian “burger” with a patty made from sesame-crusted cheese and “buns” made from potato pancakes. Both dishes were fine and I could see that some thought had been put into the creative preparation and plating.
Dresdner Kaffeestübchen – Authentic Local Cakes
We’ve done regular vegetarian restaurants, we’ve done brunch restaurants, and now it’s time for “Kaffee und Kuchen”, or “cake and coffee”, a German tradition that I can get behind. It’s probably cheating to include these restaurants on the list, since obviously a cake restaurant will have vegetarian options, but they were good so I’m sharing them with you.
Dresden is known for its Dresden Eierschecke, or “egg custard cake”, and the most famous place to try this local specialty is at Dresdner Kaffeestübchen. Take note, however: this little coffee shop is run by one man, and it only has four tables. Getting seated really is luck of the draw.
The special here is the “Dresdner Gedeck”, a prix-fixe special consisting of a slice of egg custard cake, a cup of coffee from their own custom roast, and a glass of coffee liqueur made from the owner’s family recipe. This was definitely one of the best cakes I had on my trip to Saxony (and I don’t think it was just the liqueur talking!).
Schokoladenbar – Fair-Trade Chocolate
The other coffee shop in Dresden that I want to highlight is Schokoladenbar in the Dresden Art Passage. Well, technically you have to enter the coffee shop from the street, but their terrace opens in the art passage.
This is a really cute, homey café that opens each afternoon and evening for coffee, fancy hot chocolates, cocktails and cakes. The salted caramel torte (shown above, sorry for the bad lighting) was delicious, and I also had a nice tropical cocktail on a second visit.
In addition to engaging in green and fair-trade practices, Schokoladenbar has things like Equal Pay Day on Wednesdays, where women get 18% off their order due to Germany’s 18% wage gap. They’ve said they’ll cancel this discount as soon as the wage gap closes… so it will probably be in place for a while, sadly.
Vegan & Vegetarian Supermarket Options
As a random aside, because I was staying in an apartment in Dresden with a full kitchen, I prepared quite a few meals at home. My go-to supermarket was the REWE at the corner of Bautzner Strasse and Rothenburger Strasse in Neustadt.
This supermarket had a good selection of vegan and vegetarian dishes, including lots of inexpensive salad kits, like the Vietnamese noodle salad kit shown above (just read the ingredients carefully as some contain chicken or ham), vegetarian stuffed pastas, mock meat schnitzels, frozen seasoned veggies for sautéeing, and ready-made juices and smoothies.
More Vegan and Vegetarian Restaurants in Dresden
I had these restaurants pinned on my map as possible places to eat while I was in Dresden, but I ran out of time before I had a chance to visit them. If you’ve been to any, let me know if you enjoyed them!
- Vegan House – This restaurant has two locations in Dresden, but it was their location on Schillerplatz, along the banks of the Elbe River, that caught my eye. The mango salad and peanut tofu stick looked so good.
- Falscher Hase – You’ll see solyanka, a hot and sour soup of Russian origins, on menus across East Germany, but this is probably the only restaurant where you’ll find a vegan version (made with soy and seitan). They also do veggie burgers, nut roasts and pasta.
- Silky Vegetarian – Several different Asian cuisines are represented on the menu here, but the focus is on plant-based Vietnamese food.
- Veggie House Cigkofte – I have a soft spot for Turkish street food, and this vegetarian restaurant serves up typical dishes like cig kofte (bulgur wheat patties), falafel and borek.
Of course there are lots more vegetarian restaurants in Dresden, with the majority being focused in Neustadt. If you’re not in a hurry, come around 6:30 or 7:00 and wander around until you find somewhere that piques your interest (and your appetite).
Before you go, check out some of my other Saxony travel guides!
🗺️ How to Spend Two Days in Dresden, Germany
🚃 How to Ride the Suspension Monorail in Dresden
📽️ The Best Things to Do in Gorlitz, Germany
🚂 How to Ride the Historic Steam Train from Zittau to Oybin Castle
🥂 A Guide to Visiting The Chemnitz Wine Festival
💎 Terra Mineralia: Europe’s Best Gemstone Museum
🏰 Delitzsch, Germany: A Cute Day Trip from Leipzig
🪨 10 Things to Do in Freiberg, Saxony
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