Calling all vegan foodies! In my opinion, Athens is a haven for plant-based food options. I recently spent five days in Athens and my belly was full the entire time. I had some of the BEST vegan food I’ve had in a long time at a restaurant. So if you already have a trip planned to Athens, you can add these restaurants to your list. If you don’t have a trip planned, then maybe this post will convince you to take a trip, if only for the amazing food.
I’ll start off with the restaurants that I personally ate at because I can give honest reviews. At the end I’ll leave a list of other restaurants I had on my list that I didn’t get a chance to visit.
- Fully Vegan Restaurants in Athens
- Restaurants with Vegan Options in Athens
- Additional Restaurants
- Conclusion
Fully Vegan Restaurants in Athens
Athens has no shortage of fully vegan options. I love visiting these types of restaurants because you can order anything on the menu. Even more exciting is that they usually have plant based versions of typical local dishes. That way you can actually experience the culture through cuisine, while still eating plant based. That’s a win-win for me!
Vegan Beat
I have to put Vegan Beat first because of all the gyros I tried (and I tried a lot) my partner and I both agreed that this was the best one. We went back to have another one, it was that good. The menu has traditional Greek options such as gyros, skepasti, and lahmajun. But it also has veggie burgers, salads, and sides. I had the space gyro which was made with oyster mushrooms. This gave it the best texture and had so much flavor. And the turmeric corn pita bread was to die for! The prices are all under €10, and the space gyro is a great deal at only €4.80. Location is here.
Peas Vegan and Raw Food
This restaurant is located conveniently close to the Acropolis, about a five minute walk away. The menu is pretty extensive serving main dishes, wraps, salads, veggie burgers, and desserts. Prices range from €4.50 for a seitan gyro wrap to €11.50 for a main dish. We tried the Two Peas in a Pod Skepasti made from seitan and the Mountain Peak which was a spicy kebab dish made of lentils and chickpeas. Both were delicious. And they have a lot of dessert options on their menu, which can be difficult to find as a vegan. Location is here.
Cookoomela Grill
This restaurant is located on Themistokleous street right next-door to Magic Kitchen and some dessert shops with vegan options. So if you’re headed this way, come hungry. The menu features a wide array of souvlaki gyros and kebabs made from mushrooms or lentils. The wraps come in a wooden box which makes them look like the tastiest bouquet of gyros! We tried the Red, the Rainbow Supreme, and the Kebab Yogurtlu, all of which were delicious. The mushrooms used in the gyros seemed to be baby bellas, but don’t quote me on that. The prices are insanely reasonable, averaging €4.80 for most of the menu items. Location is here.
Magic Kitchen
As mentioned above, this restaurant is located right next to Cookoomela Grill. Their menu states that they are a migrant-run vegan cooperative which serves street food from Asia Minor. Their menu features sandwiches such as köfte and tantuni, and gözleme with various fillings. We tried the Vegan Cheese filled Gözleme and the Tantuni Emek. I was really happy that the tantuni, which was described as a spicy soy kebab, actually had a good heat to it! The gözleme was like a grilled tortilla with a creamy filling. We also tried to order a homemade kombucha, but they were sold out. So the owner gave us complimentary homemade lemonade, which was very kind. You can probably see a trend here, but the prices were very reasonable averaging €5-7 per menu item. Location is here.
Mama Tierra
This restaurant has two locations; one full sit-down restaurant and one smaller take-away spot near the acropolis. The restaurants have different menus, so take a look at both before you visit. We visited the take-away spot near the acropolis and it was pretty tasty. The acropolis take-away menu features salads, gyros / souvlaki, burgers, and wraps. We tried the Greek Mushroom Gyros, which again were made with something similar to a baby bella mushroom. My only negative comment about the food was that the corn pita wasn’t as good as at most of the other places we visited. The prices at the take-away location are reasonable, with gyros costing €5 and other items averaging €8-10. Also, this is one of the few places you can get vegan baklava. So if that interests you, I’d order one!
Looking back at the menu of the full restaurant, I wish I would have visited because they serve plant based versions of Mousakas and Soutzoukakia. Prices at the full restaurant are a bit higher, averaging €8-13 per dish. Location is here.
Veganaki
When I was researching vegan restaurants in Athens, this is the one that came up most frequently. Veganaki is a sit down restaurant with a large menu of traditional Greek foods. The menu features salads, wraps, pizzas, mains, and even pasta. We tried this place on our last night and were not disappointed. We ordered the Zucchini Pie and the Soutzoukakia, both of which were amazing and very different from other Greek food we’d tried. The soutzoukakia reigned supreme for us with its seasoned tomato sauce and thin wrap – I would highly recommend it. I believe this place is popular for its moussaka so it might be a good place to try it. The prices are more reflective of a sit down restaurant, ranging from €8-12 for a dish. Location is here.
Restaurants with Vegan Options in Athens
One reason I think Athens was such a great place to visit as a vegan is that aside from the wide array of fully plant based restaurants, a large percentage of regular restaurants had multiple vegan options. Vegan items were generally clearly labeled as vegan, which was super helpful.
Loukoumades
You can’t come to Greece and not try loukoumades. This is the most popular place serving the delicious tiny donuts. The donuts themselves are 100% vegan and there are a number of vegan toppings and fillings you can add on. Some vegan topping options include bitter chocolate sauce, maple syrup, powdered sugar, and various nuts. They also serve vegan sorbets. Loukoumades with toppings or fillings average around €4-6. I tried the bitter chocolate and they were just as good as I expected them to be! It’s a perfect late night snack. Multiple locations, one is here.
Keenkies
After having the loukoumades at Loukoumades, I wanted to try them at another shop. Keenkies was that place. It’s located on Themistokleous street across from Cookoomela Grill and Magic Kitchen. This restaurant is unique because they have both savory and sweet loukoumades with a pretty large menu of vegan options.
I tried the sweet loukoumades with peanut butter and chocolate. In my honest opinion, I think that the donuts we had at Loukoumades tasted better. I think the chocolate was just higher quality. But I would still recommend this restaurant and would go back to try out some of the savory options. They have topping combinations such as spicy seitan pepperoni with tomato and sriracha, or mushroom mince with oat bechamel sauce and chives. Sounds like some amazing vegan fast food if you ask me. The prices average around €3-6 euros per item. Location is here.
Full Spoon
I kind of have a bit of a love-hate relationship with this place. I loved it because they had the most amazing vegan ice cream! But of the 15 or so times I walked past, it was only open twice. I had the ice cream on my first day in Athens and all week I was waiting for it to be open so I could have more. They were closed all day on a Friday which seems odd to me. But if you can manage to catch them when they are open, go! They have both sorbets and coconut milk based ice cream. I had a scoop of strawberry sorbet and dark chocolate. The strawberry was so perfectly tart and fruity, and the chocolate was amazingly decadent. The prices are comparable to other shops, costing €4.20 for two scoops. Location is here.
Feyrouz
This is a Lebanese street food shop whose menu features quite a few vegan options. The vegan dishes include savory wraps, pies, soups and salads. This shop operates sort of like a bakery so they heat up the items that are already made. Because of this, a lot of the vegan options we wanted to try from the menu were not available. So I would recommend visiting earlier in the day for the largest variety. We tried the fatayer and the leek rezene. Everything we got was tasty, but it wasn’t filling enough to be a full dinner. It’s a good spot for a snack or light lunch. The prices are reasonable with almost everything costing under €5. Location is here.
Baklamania
If you want to try out vegan baklava, this is an option. This shop is full of all types of baklava and they have one vegan version. My partner had non-vegan baklava in Turkey and he said that the vegan baklava from this shop tasted exactly the same. So I would say that it’s a pretty good replica of non-vegan baklava. It’s slightly expensive at around €1.50-2.50 per piece baklava. Location is here.
Additional Restaurants
Below are some additional restaurants and shops I had saved on my list with pretty good reviews. If I had more time I would have visited these so check them out!
- Wild Souls: Vegan cafe with pastries, breakfast, smoothies, sandwiches, and coffee
- Holy Llama: Vegan bakery that serves brunch and coffee
- Early Bites: Restaurant serving plant based versions of traditional Greek brunch dishes
- Ice Queen Gelato: Serves vegan ice cream, waffles, and drinks
Conclusion
While this isn’t an exhaustive list of vegan restaurants in Athens, I think gives you a pretty good start to work from. I spent five days in Athens and the restaurants listed almost exclusively filled up that amount of time. I ate a lot of gyros (because I love them!) but there were plenty of other options on the menus in case you don’t enjoy eating the same thing over and over. Happy eating!
Courtney Plans Travels 
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