5 Delicious Vegan Restaurants in Auckland
This year was my first time in New Zealand and I have to admit in general I was a bit disappointed with the vegan options in New Zealand. Auckland, however, does not disappoint, there are numerous all-vegan restaurants in Auckland. In my short time in the city, I had time to try out the following restaurants.
Auckland is the perfect starting point for your New Zealand holidays since the only international airport is located there. It was the starting point for our three-week van life in NZ. We spent one week on the North Island of New Zealand in the rain. And then we had an amazing 14-day itinerary for the South Island of New Zealand.
Make sure to check the opening times online before going to a vegan restaurant in Auckland. I noticed that most restaurants close rather early. This was a bit of an adjustment for me since I was used to the opening times of vegan restaurants in Kuala Lumpur, where I spent a few days before coming to New Zealand.
Tart bakery
Tart bakery has multiple locations in Auckland, as the name says it’s a bakery. A vegan bakery with sweet and savoury snacks to go. I only went to the location in Commercial Bay Mall, there’s no dedicated seating area of the bakery but the mall has some seating areas. I really enjoyed sitting on the big steps leading up to the mall, the you can sit eat your snack and watch the people on the square in front of the mall.
I had both savoury sandwiches, the fried vegan chicken and the vegan lemon chicken. Both sandwiches were good but I liked the lemon chicken better. I can highly recommend The sweet pastries, I had a chocolate and an almond-filled one and they were both delicious.
Tart bakery is a great place to get a snack for on the road wherever you had to next chances are high there are no vegan restaurants around.
Revive
Revive looks like it’s the perfect vegan restaurant in Auckland for a quick lunch. The food is displayed at the counter and you can order a bowl to eat in or take away. They also have a shelf of shop items, mainly their homemade granola.
When I visited I wasn’t really hungry but I wanted to check out the place anyway. So I only got a chia berry yoghurt which was very fruity and nice. If I’d had more time in Auckland I’d definitely go back there to try a main dish since they looked really good.
Sunflower Thai Vegan Restaurant
There are actually two Thai all-vegan restaurants in Auckland, which is really cool because Thai food is really delicious. I only had time to visit one of them, Sunflower Thai.
I loved their extensive menu, the only thing missing from it was sticky rice with mango. Many dishes sounded very good but in the end, I ended up with the classic pad Thai. It’s my favourite Thai dish and it was just what I expected.
Lord of Fries
Lord of Fries is a Melbourne-based vegan fast-food chain with multiple locations in New Zealand. I didn’t have time to visit Lord of the Fries in Auckland but I’ve been to some locations in Melbourne before and it’s really good vegan fast food.
The Raw Kitchen
To be honest, I thought The Raw Kitchen is one of the vegan restaurants in Auckland, turns out it’s just vegetarian. Everything is vegan except that you can have cow milk in your coffee. They have smoothie bowls and raw desserts.
The location of The Raw Kitchen isn’t the best, it’s located kind of in a parking lot. But the upstairs sitting area is very cosy, it feels like you’re sitting in a living room.
I had a matcha latte and a smoothie bowl. The smoothie bowl took quite a long time, I had already finished my matcha latte by the time I got my bowl. I and my friends all said it was good but it could have been better. As smoothie bowls go it was very basic but since we didn’t see that many other vegetarian or vegan restaurants in Auckland which sell smoothie bowls it’s a good option for breakfast or a healthy snack.
Other vegan restaurants in Auckland
Unfortunately, I only had a very short time to try vegan restaurants in Auckland but considering the short time I almost managed to go to all of them. You can find a full list of all vegan restaurants in Auckland on HappyCow.
Let me know in the comments what’s your favourite vegan restaurant in Auckland.
