Vegetarian Restaurants in Seattle

From our own experience and email tips. Thanks for email tips to: Alek Vila, Tricia Sullivan, Matt Horning, Annie Roberts, Sean, Harpreet Gill, Melissa Miller, Anna Peekstok, Autumn Cutter, Maya Chandrashekhar, Ian Ferrell, Sean and Dylan, Diane Slota, John Leeng, Lauren Kuehne, Paul Tamura, Dan Cohn, Kathy P., Lynette Bachert, Sheree Walters, Diana Sharon, Alejandro Garcia, Lawrence Yeagley, James W. Patterson, Robin Hart, Jonathan Laden, Gust Burns, John Peekstok, John Sincock, Larry Fried, Deanna Theiss, Robyn Landis, and Steven Taylor.

Here are the vegetarian restaurants located in Seattle.

• Sutra, 1605 N 45th St, 206/547-1348 (reservations recommended)
  I haven't been to Sutra. It's on the pricey side for my budget, but it sounds nice. --AV
• Jhanjay (Thai), 1718 N 45th St, 206/632-1484
  I really enjoy Jhanjay, although it's also a little more pricey than other Thai restaurants (whatever happened to including rice with your meal?). --AV
• Veggie Veggie, 4537 University Way NE, 206/547-6500
  Veggie Veggie in the U-District is a nice value. --AV
• Cafe Reiki, 3518 Fremont Ave N #2, 206/898-4627
  Raw and Vegetarian Meal delivery service. Offering a weekly box menu of Raw Food entrees, sides, snacks, and desserts. --TS
• Vegetarian Bistro, 668 S. King Street, 206/624-8899
  They have a stunning dining room, soft music, wok hay and they are right there in the middle of Chinatown.
  The simple exterior does not prepare you for the room. It is serene and tasteful and welcoming. If the expanse of flagstone floors, scrupulously healthy plants, and soft, watery music don’t invite you in, the owner, Mackey Wong will remedy that. Mackey was born into a restaurant family and it shows. She is warm and friendly without being intrusive. She is so graceful and trim and vibrant you just want to ask her to send over what she eats. Sometimes I do.
  That is how I discovered Mashed Potato Stuffing on the dim sum menu. Mackey ordered it for me. Its name does not do it justice. It comes shaped like three perfect tiny pears. Potato formed around chopped black mushrooms and tofu shrimp. It is rolled in panko, I think and so perfectly fried you don’t know how they managed it. No grease, no dark aftertaste. I try not to order a lot of fried foods but I was hooked. (I also try not to curse or to yell at the radio when the president is speaking but no one is perfect.) You cannot go to Vegetarian Bistro without ordering the Salt and Pepper Tofu. This is the dish to convince your non-tofu eating friends they have really been missing something. It is perfect all by itself but then the chef surrounds it with a confetti of diced fresh peppers and flash fried Chinese broccoli leaves.
  I am fighting the urge to describe every dish I have tasted in detail. I have eaten there with groups of friends a few times a week since they opened and not one of them missed. You will have to explore for yourself. The menu is extensive and varied. Please save room for dessert. There are sweet dim sum including a steamed coconut cake filled with yellow bean paste that was scented as sweetly as it was seasoned. The ginger ice cream has tiny starbursts of crystallized ginger in a light icy cream. The cinnamon pudding defies description.
  There is a tea bar of sorts in the back of the dining room. I have been told you can tell the quality of a Chinese restaurant by the quality of their tea. Here you can order an excellent jasmine or an herbal rose, or the tea equivalent of champagne. It’s a large hand shaped bead of tea that unfolds in your tall glass goblet like a peony blossom. You can refill your glass several times and keep enjoying its flowery subtlety.
  This is a vegetarian restaurant that will not only fill a big void for us vegetarians and vegans, it is also appealing to omnivores and lovers of the new and exotic. The big room with lots of floor space will be comfortable for people in wheelchairs but I think accessibility to the bathrooms is out of the question. Children are welcomed and coddled. (MM)
• Wayward Cafe, 901 NE 55th Street, 206/524-0204, Tue-Sun 9am-6pm.
  100% vegan. Collectively run/worker owned. Breakfast and lunch all day. Kids menu and daily specials. Baked goodies and desserts. (Sean)
• Silence - Heart - Nest, 3508 Fremont Place N, 206/524-4008. These guys have moved from the U District to Fremont. The new space was formerly occupied by the Longshoreman's Daughter restaurant, and a few of their dishes been retained, for the time being at least. These folks are followers of Sri Chinmoy. The "Neat Loaf" is excellent, and I liked their excellent mashed potatoes with mushroom gravy. The several vegan choices are so marked on the menu. Don't miss the desserts, especially the brownies.
• Café Flora, 2901 E. Madison, 325-9100. Reservations accepted for large parties only. Closed Mondays. This is an excellent upscale gourmet restaurant (a little pricier than you might think). They serve Northwest cuisine - sans the fish! Beautiful decor - take your date here. I like the Portobello Wellington, although it does takes surprisingly like beef and that may put you off. The nutburger is good with some swiss cheese, lettuce and tomato to make it juicier.
• The Sunlight Café, 6403 Roosevelt Way NE, 206-522-9060. Hours 7am-9pm, weekend brunch 9am-2pm. A friendly little place of modest pretensions. The sesame crunch waffles, espresso and yogi tea are all excellent, as is the huevos picante. For dinner, the baked lasagne is tasty and piping hot, but be forewarned it takes a long time to prepare. Service is prompt and friendly. One of our favorites. One thing to watch out for: early mornings and at odd ours, they only offer a limited menu.
• Bamboo Garden, 364 Roy, 206-282-6616. This restaurant is just to the immediate north of Seattle Center. It's like a regular Chinese restaurant, with mu shu pork, etc. except that all the meat is fake - wheat gluten and the like. The food is really tasty. You can take your non-veggie friends there, and if you keep quiet they may not even notice that the meat isn't real. Everything is vegan except the fortune cookies. Certified Kosher, too.
• Carmelita, 7314 Greenwood Ave N, 206-706-7703. Closed Mondays. Dinner-only on weekdays.
  This noisy and popular restaurant in the Phinney Ridge neighborhood has tasty salads and pretty good entrees. Reservations recommended.
• Teapot Vegetarian House, 125 15th Ave. E, 206/325-1010. Open for lunch and dinner. Chinese food.
  Also in Overlake now.
  The Teapot on 15th, Capitol Hill, is very good and is kosher, too. We love it. --RH
• Araya's Vegetarian Thai, 1121 N.E. 45th St.
  These folks have two Thai restaurants, side by side. One has meat and the other is vegan, from the same kitchen I think. The food was ok but uninspired. They seem to have just substituted tofu squares for the usual meat. Bargain buffet available Saturdays. Acoustic guitar and poetry on Sunday nights at 6:30.
• The Globe Café and Bakery, now closed.
• Cyber Dogs, 909 Pike Street, one block east of the Seattle Convention Center main entrance, 206/405-3647
  Vegetarian hot dogs, espresso and baked goods.
• Piece of Heaven, food booth
  The only food booth at most of the Seattle Peace Concerts, Sundays from 12:00 - 6:00pm. 100% Vegan.
• Chaco Canyon Café, 4757 12th Ave NE, 206.522.6966. U-district.
  My favorite value is Chaco Canyon for it's organic goodness at decent prices. --AV
• Pizza Pi Vegan Pizzeria - pizzapi.net - 5500 University Way NE
• Squid and Ink - 1128 S Albro - Run by same people as Wayward Cafe, vegan.
• Mighty-O donuts - 2110 N 55th St - Vegan donuts, coffee

Also worth noting (not fully vegetarian)...

• Pho Ha Restaurant, 90 Yesler Way (Pioneer Square), 206-326-4800
  Also serving veggie buffet, $4.58 plus Tax, all-you-can-eat. (JL)
• The Moonlight Café, 1919 S Jackson, 206-322-3378
  Vietnamese restaurant with a six page vegetarian menu, and although they have a much smaller non-veggie menu, it seems to only be there to satisfy those who demand it. Asian vegetarian food in the style of Bamboo Garden or Teapot, but I actually think its generally tastier. This place has been around a long time, and I'm not sure why they haven't gotten much recognition outside of the Asian market as a really good vegetarian place to go, but they deserve it. The best feature besides the food though is that their full menu is available until 2am on weekends and 11pm on weekdays, if you can endure typically very loud vietnamese karaoke from the stage. (DC)
  The Moonlight Cafe, my favorite restaurant, is now blissfully free of karaoke!  The trade-off is that their hours are now 10AM-10PM on weekdays and 10AM-11PM on weekends. (PT)
  Just wanted to let you and your readers know that Moonlight Cafe blatantly overcharged me for lunch today. I ordered from the lunch menu and they charged the dinner price, plus $.95 for rice. Ending up costing 11.25 instead of 7.25. I asked them to correct the bill and she would not. It's sad because I'm a veg and would eat there again. But now I'll never eat there again. The food was okay and not worth being ripped off. (wigsociety)
• Rover's, 2808 E Madison Street, 206/325-7442.
  I just had an amazing vegetarian meal at a French Restaurant in Madison Valley called Rovers. They do prix-fixe only, but one of them every day is vegetarian. They tell me that with advance notice (one day) or early same day they could do vegan as well. The service was great, the food outstanding and the experience memorable. I've eaten many times at Cafe Flora and Carmelitas and while those meals were good, there really is no comparison. The price certainly reflects the quality, $70 for the five course vegetarian with an optional European and local cheese plate for 17.50. Quite a splurge but well worth the treat. It is hard to get French vegetarian food in general, but five courses.... I was in heaven. (AG)
• Agua Verde, 1303 NE Boat Street, 206/545-8570.
  Great Mexican food with interesting vegetarian options, such as a sweet potato taco. World music on some weeknights. It's near the University and packed with students. Parking can be tough - try coming at 7 or 7:15 in the evening when classes change. (RG)

Also, check out the reviews at Natural Choice Directory, and at Seattle CitySearch.

Eastside Vegetarian

The pickings are slimmer on the Eastside of Lake Washington, but don't worry, you won't starve. Here are some suburb-by-suburb picks.

Kirkland

Lucky Cafe, 12069 124th Ave NE, (425)814-6421
A small (intimate) dining area of 6-8 tables. Specialize in Asian stir-fry and Asian soy meat, for lunch and dinner. (DS)

Café Happy, 102 Kirkland Avenue, 425-822-9696
Vegetarian asian food. This place is really tiny. There is only one table and a half-dozen stools at counters. They use "vegetarian meat" made of soya. We found their food to be tasty and they were nice to us.

Shamiana, 10724 NE 68th St. (by PCC), 425-827-4902
Indian

George's Place, 108 Kirkland Avenue, 425-827-6622
George's Place in Kirkland has vegetarian dishes, plus will make a veggie version of any pasta dish. --JS
As for George's restaurant in Kirkland, my favorite item was a cheese grinder. It wasn't on the menu and you had to ask for it. --LY

Royal India, 9714 Juanita Drive NE, 425/820-2303.

Bellevue

In Bellevue, your best bet is to head for Crossroads Public Market, at 156th Ave NE and NE 8th St. The food court at Crossroads has several restaurants with vegetarian entrees. The Indian restaurant has come good veggie wraps. Terero Mexican restaurant has a list of veggie entrees. Ebrû, a Greek place, offers many veggie dishes. Free folk, jazz and world music concerts Friday and Saturday evenings at 7:30pm, open mike/showcases Thursdays at 6:30pm.

India Gate, 3080 148th Avenue SE, 425-747-1075
They have a nice large section of vegetarian entrees. The lunch buffet looks like a good bet. We ate dinner here recently and the food was good.
India Gate in Eastgate was good, I was there about 3 years ago. --JS

Issaquah

Pabla Vegetarian Cuisine, 1420 NW Gilman Blvd #N3, 425/392-4725, open for lunch and dinner. Indian food, Punjabi to be particular. "Strictly Pure Vegetarian Kosher" A nice sit down restaurant. The time we went they just offered a buffet with unlabeled dishes. This made me uncomfortable, because I don't if a dish is a sauce, a soup, what goes with what. In other words, they cater to those who are already quite familiar with this cuisine.

PCC market, 1810 12th Ave NW, 425/369-1222, open 7am to 10pm. They have a salad bar, some other food and drink, and a small eating area. You'll be eating in a grocery store, which is pretty funky, if that matters to you.
At Gilman Village, both Julia's (American) and Tarantela (Greek) have a good choice of vegetarian entrees.
Qdoba Mexican Grill, 6140 E. Lake Sammamish Parkway SE, has two vegetarian items on the menu. It's sort of like a Subway sandwhich joint; they make your burrito right in front of you while you tell them what to put in it. It's perfect for picky eaters and tasty, too.

Kent

Punjab Sweets 23617 104th Ave SE Ste C Kent, Wa 98031 253-859-3236
Very cheap food for the quality of food you receive. All of the items are made with fresh ingredients and spices. We also specialize in Northern Indian salted snacks and sweets that are made from scratch. The sweets are a big attraction for the entire Northwest. People also really love the homemade yogurt we make everyday! (HG)

Redmond

Namasthe Cuisine of India, 16650 Redmond Way, 425/558-7858.
There’s a wonderful vegetarian restaurant located in Redmond, Washington called Namasthe Cuisine of India. The food is absolutely delicious, the staff go above and beyond to make your dining experience excellent, they easily accommodate to vegans, and the food is relatively inexpensive for a large amount (such as the vegan dinner special, which is only $12.00 and includes samosas, two entrees, bread, rice, soup, fruit, and salad). I would highly recommend this restaurant to anyone, vegetarian or non. (AC)

Teapot Vegetarian House, 15230 NE 24th St., 425/747-8881.
Teapot House is now on the Eastside, in the Overlake area next to Malay Satay Hut, Performance Bikes and the old Bon Furniture Store. The couple times I’ve gone, it’s been packed at lunch. Food’s as good as the Seattle location, service can be a little slow at times. (IF)

Kanishka Indian Restaurant, 16101 Redmond Way, 425/869-9182.

Preets, 8440 160th Ave NE, 425/867-9400
100% vegetarian, authentic ‘HOME MADE’ Indian food. One of the best on the Eastside. (MC)
Great atmosphere, contemporary and modern decor! The food is presented very nice and the best part is that it is different from all the other Indian restaurants. We have no buffet, so all the food is made to order. The parothas are excellent. They are stuffed bread with a fresh filling of your choice. (HG)

Renton

Pabla Indian Cuisine, 364 Renton Center Way SW, 425-228-4625. Take Rainier Ave S north from the 405 a few blocks; it's in the Fred Mayer shopping center on the left.
Excellent vegetarian Indian food - not vegan, but they can make some dishes dairy-free upon request. Certified Kosher, too. The combos on the back page of the menu are an easy way to try several things in one meal. The restaurant is co-located with an Indian grocery store, if you're inclined to try some Indian cooking.

Woodinville

The Herbfarm, 14590 NE 145th Street, Woodinville, 206/784-2222.
This restaurant serves super-fancy eleven course gourment meals, complete with wine, dessert and the works. Reservations are essential (and hard to get). They can accomodate any kind of vegetarian if you tell them in advance. Very expensive but worth it.

On Vashon Island: A new one, The Monkey Tree, just opened on Vashon Highway on the south end of the downtown area and it has some really great food. --AR

On Whidbey Island, I have a recommendation for Blueberry Jazz, 5438 So. Woodard Ave, 360/331-4950.
Vegetarian Gourmet Cuisine, in Freeland, on Whidbey Island, at the foot of Holmes Harbor. Four Course dinners, including fresh baked desserts, with prices from $15 to $25. Non-alcoholic beer/wine, non-smoking, Chef Eric Olson, Wed-Sat, 5-9 pm. Lunch menu to begin May, 2001. Beautiful setting, peaceful, relaxed, and quiet. --JWP

In Tacoma, try Quickie Too: A Vegan Cafe, 1324 Martin Luther King Avenue S, (253) 572-4549. Open 11-8 Tu, W, F, Sun.
Quicky Two makes the best vegan sandwhiches I've ever tasted. They use tofu, tempeh, quinuao, and a bunch of other things for meat "substitutes". I think they recently opened another place in Seattle on University Way. Check it out. --GB
or Steep and Story, 1936 Pacific Avenue (near UW Tacoma), 253/274-0090.
Our used bookstore (Steep & Story: Books and Tea) only carries vegetarian sandwiches (from Essential foods) and vegan cookies. We don't do any of our own cooking, but we do provide an all-vegetarian atmosphere. --JL

See also Tofu Hunter, Robyn Landis' Seattle Veg Restaurant list and this guide from the P-I: A Guide to Vegetarian and Vegan Dining.

Also! Vegetarians of Washington

Additions welcomed - send email.