The best vegan restaurants in Riyadh make it easier than ever to enjoy delicious plant-based dining across the city. Riyadh’s vegan restaurant scene is still fairly small, but finding a proper plant-based meal is no longer as difficult as it once was. Only a handful of places are completely vegan.
Some of the best choices come from restaurants with a dedicated plant-based menu or from cuisines where dishes such as koshari, ful and vegetable mezze were vegan long before the word began appearing on menus.
What matters is having enough choice to order an actual meal. A side salad, chips and whatever vegetables the kitchen can remove the cheese from may technically work, but it is hardly a reason to book a table. From pancakes and smoothie bowls to Lebanese mezze and Egyptian street food, these are some of the best places to eat vegan food in Riyadh.
Moon Shell
Moon Shell is where to go when you want to order without checking every ingredient first. The café is completely vegan, so there is no need to ask whether a sauce contains dairy or whether something has been cooked with butter. The entire menu has already been created without animal products.
Breakfast and brunch are a large part of what it does. Vegan pancakes, oatmeal, granola and smoothie bowls all feature, along with millet masoub and lighter dishes built around fruit, nuts and plant-based ingredients.
There is also a proper dessert selection. Dairy-free nice cream comes in several flavours, while cakes and sweeter bowls give visitors more to choose from than the single vegan dessert that often appears on otherwise conventional menus.
Coffee can be made with plant-based milk, and the cold-pressed juices and smoothies make Moon Shell just as easy to visit for a quick stop as it is for a longer breakfast.
The atmosphere is casual and quiet enough for coffee with a friend, a slow morning or a meal where nobody wants to begin by asking the server six questions about the menu.
For anyone newly vegan, it is also a very easy place to start. Being able to choose according to what sounds good, rather than what can be modified, makes the whole meal feel much more normal.
Cleanse & Glow
Cleanse & Glow has been part of Riyadh’s health-food scene since 2013. It began with juices and cleansing programmes, but the menu now includes plant-based breakfasts, snacks and meals that are substantial enough for lunch.
Previous dishes have included courgette noodles with pesto, sweet potato pizza, black bean burgers and salads built around vegetables, grains, seeds and plant-based dressings. Smoothies, energy bites and lighter snacks cover the hours when a full meal feels unnecessary.
The menu is clearly aimed at people who pay attention to what they eat, but that does not mean every portion arrives as three leaves and a decorative seed. A burger, pizza or filling bowl makes it possible to leave feeling as though lunch genuinely happened.
Juices remain central to the concept, with blends using fruit, vegetables, herbs and spices. Smoothies are the more filling choice, particularly when they include plant-based milk, nut butter or added protein.
Cleanse & Glow is a good option for diners who want fresh food without needing every vegan meal to imitate meat. Vegetables are allowed to remain vegetables, which can be a welcome break from another plant-based burger working very hard to convince everyone it is beef.
It also fits easily into a busy day. You can stop for breakfast, collect a juice or sit down for lunch without needing to turn the visit into a full afternoon plan.
Gather Eatery
Gather Eatery is useful when the people around the table have completely different ideas about what they want to eat. It is not a fully vegan restaurant, but its plant-based selection is large enough to offer more than one modified dish.
Vegan options have included the Sweet Earth burger, green curry, Buddha bowls and the I Am Vegan wrap. There have also been plant-based desserts, including vegan chocolate cake, so dinner does not have to end when everyone else begins looking at the sweets.
The variety gives vegan diners a little freedom. One person may want a burger, another may prefer a curry and someone else may be looking for a lighter bowl filled with vegetables and grains. Everyone is not pushed towards the same salad simply because it is the only dish without meat.
The restaurant is relaxed enough for lunch or an informal dinner, particularly with friends who are not vegan themselves. Nobody has to organise the entire meal around one person’s diet, and the vegan diner does not need to build dinner from appetisers and side dishes.
The plant-based choices also feel like part of the wider menu rather than a special category added at the end. That makes the experience far less awkward than repeatedly asking for cheese, mayonnaise and butter to be removed from something that was never designed to be vegan.
Recipes can change, so it is still sensible to confirm sauces and seasonal dishes when ordering. The clearly identified choices, however, make the conversation much shorter.
Almayass
Almayass is a good reminder that vegan dining does not need to mean breakfast bowls and green juice. The Armenian-Lebanese restaurant has offered a dedicated vegan menu with dishes such as pumpkin kibbeh, spicy aubergine, vegan meat pies, aubergine fatteh and vegan maqluba.
Cold mezze add even more choice. Hummus, moutabbal, salads and vegetable dishes can fill the table quickly, especially once the warm bread arrives and somebody remembers another plate they meant to order.
This is food made for sharing. Vegan diners can build a complete meal from several dishes rather than relying on one main course, and the rest of the table does not need to order in exactly the same way.
The setting also makes Almayass suitable for a proper evening out. Plant-based food is treated as part of a generous Lebanese-Armenian dinner rather than something reserved for cafés built around smoothies and wellness language.
Some dishes that look vegetable-based may traditionally contain butter, yoghurt or meat stock, so the dedicated vegan selection is the safest place to order from. It removes the need to investigate every plate individually and allows the table to get on with the much more important task of deciding whether there is room for one more mezze.
Almayass works especially well for dinners where sharing several smaller dishes sounds more appealing than choosing one large plate and guarding it for the rest of the meal.
Zooba
Zooba serves some of Riyadh’s most filling vegan food without relying on meat substitutes. The Egyptian street-food menu includes koshari, taameya, ful medames, bessara, lentil soup and vegetable dishes. Many of these recipes happen to be plant-based because they were never built around meat or dairy in the first place.
Koshari is the obvious place to begin. Rice, lentils, pasta and chickpeas are covered with tomato sauce and crispy onions, creating the sort of meal that makes ordering anything else feel unnecessarily ambitious.
Taameya is Egypt’s version of falafel, made with fava beans rather than chickpeas. It can be ordered in a sandwich or as part of a larger spread, with pickles, salad and sauces adding more flavour.
Ful medames is another simple, satisfying choice. Slow-cooked fava beans are seasoned and served with bread, making it suitable for breakfast, lunch or a late meal that needs to be comforting without becoming complicated.
Zooba is colourful, casual and built around food that arrives quickly. It is the place to choose when you want something filling without turning lunch into an event that requires a reservation and an outfit.
Vegan diners should still confirm sauces and toppings, particularly when ordering sandwiches. Once those details are settled, however, there is plenty to choose from without removing half the original ingredients.
What Should Vegan Diners Check Before Ordering?
A dish can look entirely plant-based and still contain an ingredient that is easy to miss. Rice may be cooked with butter or meat stock, while vegetable curries can contain cream or ghee. Pastries may be brushed with egg, and sauces that appear harmless sometimes include yoghurt, mayonnaise or honey.
Lebanese and Middle Eastern restaurants often have plenty of naturally vegan mezze. Hummus, moutabbal, tabbouleh, falafel and stuffed vine leaves are usually sensible places to begin, although preparation can differ between kitchens.
Clearly labelled menus make everything easier. Moon Shell removes the question completely, while restaurants such as Almayass and Gather Eatery give diners identified plant-based choices rather than expecting them to calculate which dishes can be altered.
Riyadh may not yet have a large number of fully vegan restaurants, but there are enough good options for breakfast, lunch, dinner and dessert. The best ones are the places where vegan food feels like a proper part of the menu, not a favour the kitchen has agreed to provide.
Explore The Riyadh Atlas for the best restaurants, cafés, healthy dining spots and local food guides across Riyadh.
