Vegan cooking in New Orleans has a particular problem to solve. The canon here runs on pork fat, seafood, and roux, and a plant-based kitchen that ignores that is just a salad bar with a local address. These four do not ignore it.
1. Sweet Soulfood — Broad Street
The steam table does the talking at 1025 North Broad Street. Customers pick one to four dishes and a counter worker scoops them into a divided tray, the way Southern cafeteria dining has always worked, except nothing on the line contains animal products. The rotation covers okra gumbo, jambalaya, red beans and rice, cashew mac, collard greens, sweet potatoes, shepherd’s pie, chickpea cakes, and eggplant lasagna.
The sweet heat cauliflower has its own following, and so does the bread pudding. Everything is organic, soy-free, and dairy-free. A salad bar and an ice cream bar round out the counter. The business is Black-owned and grew out of Sweetlove Vegan Treats, which started catering and working festivals in 2014 before the restaurant opened in 2017. Menu options change by day. Open Monday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Phone is (504) 821-2669.
2. I-tal Garden — St. Claude Avenue
The name plays on “vital,” and the kitchen is family-owned and chef-run, having started as a pop-up before settling into a suite at 2372 St. Claude Avenue. The food is New Orleans soul cuisine rebuilt from plants, and the substitutions are more ambitious than most. Jackfruit stands in for ribs. Panko-fried mushroom bites arrive as oyster bites. Crabless crab cakes, cauliflower wings, creole greens, mac and cheese, and cornbread fill out a build-your-own plate.
Earlier menus added a Cajun pasta with seitan hot sausage and crab-less cake balls, plus a filet mushroom burger with crispy oyster mushrooms on a sprouted bun. Breakfast has included buttered yellow grits with chickpea scramble and maple vegan sausage. There is a dog-friendly patio. The posted schedule is Wednesday through Friday and Sunday, noon to 5, closed Monday, Tuesday, and Saturday, but the restaurant’s social accounts list different hours, so call (504) 515-7321 before driving over.
3. Breads on Oak — Oak Street and the CBD
This one started in 2012 as the first bakery and café in New Orleans to use only organic ingredients, then went fully vegan in June 2018. Artisan breads come out of a stone hearth oven using Old World technique rather than a commissary shortcut, and that bread is what makes the rest work. The vegan muffuletta, called the muffanada, is the clearest statement of purpose on the menu. Biscuit sandwiches, burgers, salads, and fries with vegan ranch cover the savory side.
The pastry case has earned national attention, with VegNews naming the Boston cream stuffed brioche one of the fifty best vegan desserts in the country. King cakes come in seven flavors and ship nationwide, which explains the customers who have been ordering them by mail for years without ever visiting. Eater named it among the city’s best vegan restaurants in 2019. The original sits at 8640 Oak Street with a courtyard and resident cats, and a second location opened in 2020 at 222 Carondelet Street. Open daily 7:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Popular items sell out before closing. Phone is (504) 324-8271.
4. Bearcat Café — Uptown
Bearcat is not a vegan restaurant, but it has a vegan menu. The regular menu also carries steak, crab scramble, and bacon. The plant-based section was unusual when the Uptown location opened in 2017, back when finding a plant-based breakfast in this city took effort.
The menu splits into a Good Cat section for lighter fare and a Bad Cat section for the heavier stuff, with most vegan items landing on the Good Cat side. Vegan pancakes, buffalo cauliflower, vegan queso, and vegan breakfast potatoes are the dishes regulars point to. Coffee comes from Equator Coffee Co., with a deep loose-leaf tea list and house-made bottled drinks. The Uptown café at 2521 Jena Street runs 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday. A second location operates at 845 Carondelet Street downtown. Weekends draw a line, and regulars recommend arriving before 9.
