Disclaimer: All the spots listed here were personally tried by us and does not contain any partner or paid posts.
If you prefer vegetarian or vegan meals, get excited! Asheville is one of the most inclusive towns we have ever visited on the East Coast and we are yet to experience a mediocre dining experience.
A three day trip or just a weekend in Asheville means immersing yourself in a ton of great food, desserts, craft beer, local wine, art, and music! With the mountains to give you company, you can’t go wrong with this combination!
Nestled between the Blue Ridge Mountains in the Carolinas area, Asheville is easily one of our top vacation spots. From our numerous visits to Asheville, NC, we have been able to visit and try out a long list of vegetarian and vegan spots there. Believe us when we say we still have so many more places to visit during future trips.
Note: During the pandemic, we do not encourage people to travel anywhere they don’t feel comfortable or safe visiting. Some of the pictures in this blog are from pre-pandemic times, and during our most recent March 2021 trip, the places we visited had outdoor dining and COVID precautions such as takeout only, limited capacity, temperature checks, and sanitizer stations in place.
Without further ado, here are the list of our top favorite vegetarian and vegan-friendly spots to visit in Asheville, NC.
Chai Pani
One of our favorite restaurants in North Carolina and on the east coast, this Indian street food spot by chef Meherwan Irani is a constant on our list, year after year.
Be it the matchstick okra fries or their delicious Mumbai-style vadapav’s, we have relished every single bite! They have scores of vegetarian, vegan, and gluten-free options. They operate as a takeout-only spot for now and have online ordering and curbside pickup. If you are up for it, don’t forget to try some of their to-go Indian-flavors inspired cocktails like their jal jeera cocktail or the pineapple turmeric margarita. Their menu is versatile and offers a wide variety of chaats in the evening and has meal combos for lunch.
Vortex Doughnuts
Team yeast doughnuts all the way here! Vortex is another spot that we have been to numerous times and love going back during our visits. They have freshly-made yeast and cake doughnuts and coffee. What’s awesome is that they also carry vegan and gluten-free doughnut options. They are open daily from 7 am to 2 pm.
They carry flavors ranging from s’mores to simple chocolate glazed ones. They also have great coffee to go with the doughnuts. While they have some outdoor seating, we often find ourselves doing a quick grab and go from them.
Early Girl Eatery
We both love brunch a little more than breakfast. While our food preferences are similar for the most part, we don’t quite match when it comes to brunch. One of us loves eggs and other…not so much. Finding a spot with non-egg based brunch dishes is quite difficult, but not impossible. Enter Early Girl Eatery!
As their name goes, try to show up EARLY cos they tend to have a long wait. We visited their Haywood location where they have both indoor and patio dining. Put your name on the waitlist and pop over to Bagattelle books, a second hand and rare books store or flora botanical living plant shop, gift store, and cafe next door. We both loved checking both these places out while waiting and picked up a few books.
While dining at Early Girl, don’t miss getting their brunch cocktails or mocktails to go with a nice plate of their monthly brunch specials. Their full menu is served all day and we tried the Early Girl’s Spinach & Potato Cakes and the veggie breakfast bowl with smiling hara tempeh. Ofcourse, we had to finish our meal with their daily special bread pudding.
Itto Ramen Bar & Tapas
Do you like ramen? And, do you like burgers? Why not combine both and get yourself a ramen burger? Yep, you read that right! Chef Tony Lin’s take on an Asian tapas in addition to the traditional ramen, Itto ramen is a must-visit spot when in Asheville.
From no-broth ramen to in-house kale ramen, this place has got you covered. Even though the dishes are traditional, Chef Tony incorporates his modern take on them.
Pro-tip: Get yourself a side of black garlic oil with the ramen. It was one of the best things we have tried!
Made with seasonal and local ingredients, everything we tried from their menu was super flavorful.
Itto ramen has two locations and their Haywood location has a covered patio too. Our only complaint was that we ate only one meal here! Cannot wait to go back and try more from their tapas menu that is filled with vegetarian options.
French Broad Chocolate Lounge
You cannot go to Asheville and not go to the French Broad Chocolate Lounge. Their chocolate factory as well as the lounge is home to some of the best bean to bar chocolates in the country.
We never miss a chance to have their rich, silky, and smooth sipping chocolate, most of which are vegan and gluten-free. The hot chocolates, chocolate torte, cake slices, and pot de creme are some of the ways you can satiate the chocoholic in you.
Don’t be intimidated by the long lines outside their building. They regulate it very well and the ordering is super easy! While waiting for your turn, you can browse around various bars of chocolates they have. They partner with local businesses and offer various flavored milk and dark chocolate bars, and you will also find multiple seasonal chocolate truffle boxes too.
They also offer two tours at 2 PM and 4 PM Monday through Saturday. Priced at $12 per adult, they walk you through the entire process of bean to bar chocolate making, offer you samples of the chocolate bars and bonbons, and take you around the factory.
White Duck Taco Shop
We love taco spots that offer good vegetarian options and White Duck Tacos is certainly one of those spots. They have a seasonal and rotational menu at both their locations.
They have two or three vegetarian taco options and all their sides are vegetarian. We tried the tofu Banh Mi tofu taco, black bean taco, and the jackfruit taco. The jackfruit taco stood out the most and made for an excellent lunch. The chips and salsa trio along with their seasonal soups made for a perfect lunch.
Chestnut
We hadn’t heard about Chestnut during any of our previous visits, but after researching for this trip and looking at their menu, we certainly wanted to give them a try.
Located in the heart of downtown Asheville, we would describe Chestnut’s food as comfort meets fine-dining. Their rotational menu is based on seasonal produces and they offer excellent small plates, salads, large plates, and desserts.
We love ordering small plates since that gives us a chance to try as many items as possible. At Chestnut, we shared the soup of the day (a warm potato-leek cheddar soup), a light and refreshing strawberry salad (gotta love when the berry season starts), roasted portobello cap, and spring gnocchi. Everything tasted amazing and the plating was so pretty.
Chestnut has limited capacity dine-in and have plexiglass windows between tables. They also only seat people at alternate tables. Don’t forget make a reservation well in advance!
Hole Doughnuts
Hole doughnuts is another doughnut shop in Asheville that cannot be missed. All their doughnuts are made-to-order and are extremely fresh and hot. And, Hole’s doughnuts are also yeast doughnuts that are hand rolled before frying. They are crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside, and perfect to start your day! We tried the vanilla glazed doughnut and the toasted almond sesame cinnamon and omg! it was so good. One more reason to love and support this local spot is that they pay above living wage to their employees.
Red Ginger Dim Sum and Tapas
An Asian tapas spot with an exclusive vegetarian menu? Well, we’re sold! We got a dinner takeout of scallion pancakes and mushroom dumplings and wiped our bowl clean.
They also have various other lunch and dinner items that we hope to try during our next visit. This is yet another spot that has outdoor patio dining if you are looking to dine with them.
Rosabee’s
Located in the vibrant River Arts District, Rosabee’s is a Polynesian restaurant with menu inspirations from Hawaii. The restaurant is modern and welcoming, and offers a wide range of vegetarian and vegan lunch, weekend brunch, dinner options.
We made a reservation for their weekend brunch. We started our meal with freshly-squeezed OJ and coffee, and went on to order the Musubi – Teriyaki Glazed House Made Tofu, Coconut Sticky Rice, Toasted Nori for Pu-pu (appetizer) and tried the Kalua Hash with tofu, smoked jackfruit, sweet onion, bell pepper, house
fried potatoes, scallion, and chili peppa watah that is part of their Ooka (brunch).
The house fried potatoes and the jackfruit were lipsmackingly good!
We also tried the Loco Moco that came with a beyond meat GF patty, coconut sticky rice, shiitake mushroom gravy, with a side of over-hard egg.
We loved all the dishes we tried and loved how they had multiple vegetarian options. Well, all the food we tried had already filled us up, so we reserved the cocktails and dessert for our next visit. This is yet another great spot with outdoor dining.
Nine Mile
Nine Mile is one of those spots that was well worth the wait time. This Caribbean-inspired restaurant offers flavor-packed meals that will make you want to go back for more. Though we didn’t get a chance to visit them during our recent visit, we have enjoyed the food and drinks here pre-pandemic times.
Their vegetarian options are some of the best food we have had in Asheville. They have three locations in Asheville and offer daily specials too. All their appetizers are vegetarian and they have multiple entree options that are vegetarian, vegan, and can be made vegetarian.
Well, that’s brings us to the end of our all vegetarian Asheville eats list, for now. We hope you enjoyed reading this long-ish blog post. Most importantly, we hope you get to try some of these local Asheville spots soon. Be on the lookout for our next log post, where we will be sharing about our experience staying at The Biltmore Inn on the Biltmore Estate.
So many places I need to try still! M Kokko has black garlic oil ramen right now and I want to black garlic oil to everything!!