Best Friend’s Gladstone café and Division Street food cart are where to go for everyday vegan pick-me-ups, like the Carmela Soprano latte, with coconut caramel, functional cordyceps mushrooms, and your choice of plant-based milk. The Margaux Mango smoothie is another favorite, amped up with turmeric, black pepper, and bee pollen. For something to nosh, try the avocado salad rolls, raw-sugar tahini truffles, and Samoa-inspired cookies for a very portable brunch. —Katherine Chew Hamilton

Year-round, this wacky doughnut shop serves flavors like the Portland Fog—Earl Grey and vanilla—and the namesake Doe, a strawberry “milk” doughnut with sprinkles. But the seasonal and monthly specials are worth bending your routine: blood orange in winter, watermelon chamoy in summer. The doughnut menu has a savory side, too, like the BLT breakfast sandwich and seasonal chicken pot pie and mac and cheese specials—all of which are, yes, doughnuts. —Alex Frane 

In fall of 2025, Epif owners Nicolle Dirks and Jose “Pepe” Arancibia shut down their bright and cheery restaurant only to reopen a few weeks later with a new concept. Rather than the vegan empanadas and pisco drinks they’d served for years, this new Epif is all about brunch. Staples reign: pancakes, Benedicts, scrambles, breakfast sandwiches. Mung beans stand in for eggs in most dishes, including the stellar empanada, which also gets soyrizo and a tomato carrot sauce. Also look out for Bloody Marys and mimosas, as well as a range of house mocktails with recommended spirits, if you want to spike them. —AF

Chef Alkebulan Moroski grew up in Mississippi, a state that’s just a little more famous for its meats than its vegan dining. And yet that state’s culinary heritage is clear in the soul food at Dirty Lettuce, where Moroski makes entirely vegan Southern staples, fried catfish to barbecue ribs, primarily with seitan. First-timers should start with a plate, which groups two sides around a main, like sticky barbecue ribs, flaky and tender catfish, or springy fried calamari and scallops made from oyster mushrooms. You’ll also want to sample the popcorn chicken; made with a classic Southern spice blend, it’s the perfect vessel Moroski’s creamy “Comeback Sauce,” sweet with a bit of kick. —AF

While fairly out of the way for many Portlanders, given its Swan Island location, Portland’s newest vegan fast-food shop is worth a drive for anyone craving a meatless burger—especially since Gnarly’s closed. The restaurant shines for its simplicity, scratching the Americana fast-food itch, like a McDonald's or BK burger. Cofounders Molly Baz, a former Bon Appétit writer, and Matt Plitch, a Nike alum, dialed in the staples to deliver that satisfyingly processed Americana fast-food thing sans animal products, from hearty fries to melty fake cheese. The menu is short and to the point: a simple grilled cheeseburger à la Burger King; a “fancy” version with lettuce, tomato, and onion; fries; chicken nuggets; a nugget sandwich; and four flavors of shakes (coffee is the wildcard). Keep an eye out for future openings—Plitch envisions a world full of Face Plants. —AF

For vegans, dim sum can be one of the most prohibitive dining experiences, as most dishes include pork, shrimp, or both. Enter: Jade Rabbit. The restaurant went through various forms and locations over the years—teahouse, brunch pop-up, meal kit service—before finally settling into a worker-owned dim sum shop on SE Belmont. Table service replaces dim sum carts, and textured soy protein from Layonna’s in San Francisco stands in for meat in the fluffy char siu bao, silky chile oil wontons, and shiitake siu mai. Don’t miss the bunny-shaped puto pao bao stuffed with sweet and salty “pork.” Jade Rabbit goes beyond dim sum staples with items like the crispy crab rangoon with faux cream cheese or heartier dishes including mapo tofu and noodle soups—it also goes beyond lunch, serving the full menu until 9pm daily.

What started as a bimonthly vegan pop-up serving seitan tacos is today a buzzing restaurant on N Killingsworth St. The menu feels endless: seitán al pastor nachos, satisfyingly chewy seitan carne asada tacos on fluffy Three Sisters Nixtamal tortillas; weekends see breakfast quesadillas stuffed with scrambled tofu, potatoes, and peppers and drizzled with cashew crema. Cocktails, bright with mango, strawberry, and chamoy, come with or without booze. But the fun-loving vibe and deep LGBTQ+ roots at Mis Tacones, which translates to “My Heels,” are the biggest draw. A GoFundMe campaign launched the brick-and-mortar, and that sense of community radiates through the space. —KCH

Japanese comfort food abounds here, with everything made from scratch. Onigiri is a menu staple, combining sprouted rice with off-the-wall misos, like Buddha’s hand–hominy and ginger-pistachio. But our go-to is the udon, made in-house and wonderfully chewy and silky. Get it in a rich curry broth or order it cold in the summer with dipping sauce. Bento plates are happy, carb-loaded affairs, combining onigiri, crisp sweet potato korokke fritters, and giant tater tots with creamy dill sauce. —KCH

The Miracle Legion and the Classic are a good way to find your footing at this vegan deli: two traditionally minded approaches to sandwich building loaded up with soy-based cold cuts and cheeses, as well as the essential pepperoncini, shredded lettuce, tomato, and onion. When the meatball special is on the menu, grab it—the herby Italian “meatballs” are layered with melty, gooey “cheese” and chunky tomato sauce with a clever scattering of capers. As at any good deli, sandwiches here are a filling meal on their own, but the “bacon”-wrapped dates are worth checking out. —AF

Vtopian has all but cornered the Portland market on vegan cheeses for the past decade, and now it has a shop on NE Grand Avenue. In the evenings, the spacious dining room transforms into a plush Italian restaurant. A cold cheese plate should start any meal, though crispy arancini and fried “mozzarella” sticks shouldn’t be ignored, either. Pasta dishes define the entrées, heaping platters of toothsome bucatini and tender Parisian gnocchi, often dusted with Vtopian’s cashew-based cheeses. Notably, imitation meats are absent: Don’t go looking for meatless balls or soy curl–stuffed ravioli. Instead, find chanterelles, caramelized onions, pickled chard, and sweet corn. A robust selection of mocktails and cocktails along with a long menu of mostly Italian vino get the evening thumping. —AF

The corner of SE 14th and Belmont has seen several projects from Aaron Adams, one of the city’s biggest names in vegan cooking. But with Astera, through pandemic pivots and personal revisions, Adams has arrived at an intimate tasting menu balanced with the space’s eccentric decor and his own larger-than-life personality. Reservations are often filled weeks in advance, which conjures memories of Adams’s earlier project, Farm Spirit. Don’t expect any imitation meats or their ilk: Astera is more concerned with what Adams calls the “horticultural cuisine of Cascadia,” whether it’s a lobster mushroom cavatelli, chicories dressed in a funky miso dressing, or savory sunchoke dumplings. Pro tip: Kann’s Gregory Gourdet is a big fan of the fermented, nonalcoholic drinks. —AF

Detroit-style pizza (square, sauce on top) is all the rage, and vegans have a worthy destination for it tucked inside the busy Zipper food court. At Boxcar, the crust is crisp around the edges and pillowy in the middle, and the plant-based cheese is perfectly oozy—just a slice or two will fill you up. Along with classic tomato sauce numbers, look for bizzarro combos, like the cheeseburger pizza that tastes like a deconstructed In-N-Out burger. —KCH

RIP to Belmont’s Sweet Hereafter, but the vegan cocktail bar is survived by its sister bar, Alberta’s the Bye and Bye, which maintains a similarly warm, exposed-wood mood in an industrial-ish room. The deal here is familiar: Youthful bargoers sip peach-flavored mason jar drinks and dig into brown rice bowls piled with barbecue tofu and cabbage slaw or nutritional yeast tofu with broccoli and spicy peanut sauce. On weekends, you can find crowds nursing their hangovers with breakfast sandwiches, soyrizo and black bean scrambles, and avocado toast served with a basil tofu ricotta and microgreens for that delicious, “never buying a house” brunch vibe. —AF

Feral hits all the familiar upscale Portland dining notes, and without animal products. The menu of pasta, vegetables, and small plates skews Mediterranean, whimsical, and super-duper local; the wine list is coolly European; and, (plant-based) chef’s kiss, it started life as a pop-up. Things change day-to-day. You might find a spicy cucumber and peach salad and pappardelle with morel ragù in summer, cavatelli with grilled lobster mushrooms and seitan schnitzel with braised radishes in winter. The peanut butter and jelly cabbage, though bewildering, is worthy of its growing mythology. It only appears as a winter special and always in a new form. The latest iteration? Brined savoy cabbage with whipped peanut butter, Cara Cara marmalade, and sesame brittle. —AF

The only Sri Lankan restaurant we know of in Portland is also one of the few worker-owned restaurants in town (and right next to Jade Rabbit, coincidentally), making it easy to root for. Sri Lankan street foods are a good start, like flaky roti stuffed with cashew cheese, Impossible meatballs, and fried “fish” patties that get their oceanic flavor from brined banana blossom and dulse. They also serve a craveable vegan take on popular Sri Lankan crispy-fried beef or mutton rolls. But our go-to is the rice and curry plate, a feast for one or a group on a banana leaf: five curries ring around yellow rice, crispy papadam, and sambols for dabbing on each bite (we also dig the pol sambol, a spicy, shredded coconut condiment). —KCH

From complex curries to silky noodles, Norah’s Thai-leaning, pan-Asian dishes conjure extraordinary depth despite their lack of animal products. The whole head of cauliflower in spicy, coconutty curry knocks every sad cauliflower steak out of the water. Something of a wild card, the coconut mushroom linguine slinks in a chile-kissed, creamy galangal sauce that pops with lime. You’ll also find some of the best pad thai in town here: snappy rice noodles wear a sweet, sour, and salty sauce and sit with every vegan protein you could want, Just Egg to seitan to fried tofu cubes. Cocktails don’t shy away from replicating animal products either, like the Norah Sour that swaps aquafaba for egg white. —KCH

A friendly, counter-service restaurant in sleepy Montavilla, Secret Pizza Society rocks some serious old-school Portland charm. Its snug space is strewn with local art pieces and mismatched furniture, and a stream of customers picking up their orders—it’s primarily a takeout spot, and you can even order take-and-bake Pies. Pizzas are 10 inches, their crusts golden, glossy, and on the crunchier side. Secret’s pizzaiolos load them up with nutty cashew cheeses and salty faux meats, serving classics like pepperoni and basil alongside novel combos like the Chalupa Batman: piles of crumbled tofu, tomato slices, and chipotle pesto, topped with cilantro and a generous drizzle of chipotle crema. Secret Pizza Society also quietly offers one of the best date-night deals in town: two pizzas and two large salads for less than $35. —AF