Proudly known as the first all-vegan kebab shop of Melbourne, Kevabs is a must-see, must eat at, Turkish vegan restaurant in Melbourne. The ‘kevab’ in mention is a mixture free of meat, egg, dairy, lactose, soy, gluten, nut, and sugar, creating a pea protein that substitutes the meat of a traditional option. While substituting for the meat component of their fare, this kevab mixture more than doubles the flavour. Forget the oily, greasy mixture of meat and sauce from your old corner kebab shop, and instead dig into a kevab with lettuce, tomato, sumac onion and pickled vegetables that will leave you feeling full and without regret.

At Smith & Daughters, eating vegan food has never looked so cool. As you step inside, you might be taken aback by the beefy (pun very much intended) rock ‘n’ roll music blasting from speakers above. Inspired by the cuisine of Italy, you can feast on your standard pasta affairs, or branch out with a fried baby eggplant or risotto Verde with broad beans, broccolini, citrus and smoked cheese (yes please). Smith & Daughters is also a great spot for the vegan-curious, with flavoursome substitutions in dishes where meat has been a standard forever. This is a popular spot for vegan food in Melbourne, so it’s best to book your table ahead of time.

If there was one way to describe The Vegan Shack, we would say convenience store combined with a great vegan eatery. With a menu for brunch, lunch and more, dig into the vegan plates for a truly filling and satisfying meal. On top of the great in-store menu, The Vegan Shack also has a range of premade and pre-packaged vegan, vegetarian and gluten-free products for you to take home with you. For the sweet-tooths, you can find gluten-free gummy bears, vegan chocolate buttons and honeycomb, amongst other pre-made and do-it-yourself options. These DIY and takeaway options are a fantastic way to encourage the vegan and vegetarian lifestyles outside of your regular restaurant purchases, and creates an opportunity for you take the taste of The Vegan Shack home with you.

Evie’s Disco Diner is a vegan restaurant in Melbourne that gets cooler and cooler the more you learn about it. Set up in a converted ironworks, Evie’s Disco Diner pays homage to 80s New York through their style and menu, whilst catering to the modern tastes and flavours of vegan and vegetarian food. Everything on the menu is or can be made vegan, meaning that there are options for herbivores and carnivores alike. Nuggets, burgers, Mexican, there’s nothing Evie’s Disco Diner can’t do, and then do it again as a vegan meal.

Red Sparrow Pizza is a pizzeria in Melbourne that specialises in 100 per cent vegan, wood-fired pizza. The wood fire method of cooking their pizzas dramatically increases the flavours on their vegan based menu, lightly charring and smoking both the toppings and dough/crust for truly incredible results. Rather than the conventional cooking methods you’d find at fast-food pizza restaurants, using a woodfire pizza oven means that your pizza will be out in no time, which helps get through the massive queues Red Sparrow Pizzeria are known to get thanks to its popularity.

From Italian cuisine with a twist to Vietnamese cuisine with a twist, GOODDays is a vegan-friendly restaurant that specialises in non-traditional pho and other Vietnamese foods. Pho (pronounced ‘f-ah’) is a Vietnamese dish made of broth, rice noodles and traditionally a slice of meat like beef or chicken. GOODDays, however, have chosen to fuse aspects of Vietnamese and western cuisine, welcoming meat-eaters, and vegans alike. GOODDays is particularly well known for its vegan tofu and mushroom spring rolls, as well as its mushroom pho, made of braised Asian mushrooms and aromatic vegetables. For those wanting to stay indoors, GOODDays also has a takeaway option, where your order can be broken down into its precooked ingredients and completed by you from the comfort of your own home.

If you’re over processed foods, with all the added preservatives and colourings, look no further than Shoku Iku. Shoku Iku specialises in raw and organic product, with the goal of changing the way people think about and taste their food, focusing on the untapped flavours raw food can create.

The pub used to be a place dominated by beers, beef burgers and chicken schnittys, but no longer is this the case at The Cornish Arms. While they’ve still got the beers and the great pub atmosphere we all know and love, the menu is lovingly catered towards their vegan customers. No longer will you have to sit alongside your carnivorous friends with only a sad bowl of chips. Now you can dig into a vegan popcorn chicken burrito, a hearty plate of vegan lasagne, or for the adventurous, a vegan McBeast Burger, with “chicken”, “beef”, double “cheese”, pickles and all the sauces.

If You’re Cooked, Get Off The Stove: NZ Firies Release Recipes for the Heavily Intoxicated stands out from this list not just for its pun-tastic name, but for the unique way of payment in store. As a non for profit restaurant, Lentil As Anything welcomes all guests to pay as they feel for their orders, either through financial contribution (your typical payment for a meal) or by volunteering your services. This method of payment and volunteering option has meant that those who could previously not afford to eat out, let alone cook for themselves, have access to a hot meal.

If you’re one of those people who can never decide what cuisine they feel like, Sister of Soul was made for you. The menu covers vegan food from all over the world, with burritos inspired by Mexico, vegan spag bol inspired by the Italians, to a tofu twist on the Indian tikka masala. Feel spoilt for choice, and please your whole crowd as you can eat across the world at one restaurant.

When it comes to traditional Thai food with a modern twist, you can’t look past Jindi Thai. The backbone of the menu is long-secret family recipes, handed down from generation to generation, and now to your table. The modern twist mentioned comes from altering these family recipes to accommodate for the changing diets of our time, specifically vegan and vegetarian options. With no shortage of the traditional meat-based options, Jindi Thai also provides vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free options for a majority of the menu items, meaning that all are welcome to enjoy the family inspired meals. For those who can’t get enough of tofu, we recommend trying the Gra Pow Crispy Tofu, as well as the tofu combo, which mixes tofu and tempura vegetables with a sweet chilli sauce.

To round out our list of the best vegan restaurants in Melbourne, we offer to you, Trippy Taco. Specialising in Mexican street food, made by a chef who lived in Southern California, Trippy Taco has a wide range of traditional and vegan options, as well as your usual culprits of corn chips and dips (guac and salsa, of course). Sitting literally right next door to Evie’s Disco Diner, you can make your way to Trippy Taco for that after boogie meal you’re craving.