We spent 3 days in Osaka and never had problem finding some delicious vegan food. Osaka might not be a Mecca for vegans, but for the short time you will probably stay there you can find some really good vegan food in the city center. Like all vegan places in Japan, the opening hours are irregular so before you go somewhere make sure the places are really open on that day. Business days for restaurants in Japan seem almost random, some are closed on Monday and Tuesday, some on Wednesday and Thursday and some on Sundays. Therefore we also noted the opening hours of every restaurant below. Here is the list of the best vegan food in Osaka.
Atl Organic & Vegetarian Cafe
(Opening hours: 12:00–22:30, closed on Tuesdays)
A cozy little cafe in the middle of Osaka offers a lunch set with changing menu. The set includes a starter, a main and a drink.They offer 2 set choices and we tried them both. That is the good part of traveling together you get to try more food. The first option is a miso soup as a starter and vegetable risotto as a main. The second option’s starter is a quinoa salad and the main a self-made hummus bagel. For drinks you can choose soy latte, espresso and tea. Everything has a very fresh and exquisite taste. The portions are not the biggest so we had space for a chocolate brownie as desert which was also excellent. So far I had the best espresso in Atl Organic Cafe during our whole Japan trip. The soy latte is also recommendable. All in all a must try for vegans visiting Osaka. I also really liked that the Atl has a little “gift corner” where you can take stuff people don’t need anymore, I assume you can also give things away you don’t need anymore. That’s a great way to reduce waste and repurpose things. The place was visited by a mostly local crowd.
Price: 3.500JPN for all food on the pictures + espresso
Green Earth
(Opening hours: 11:30am-5pm, Friday: 6pm-10pm, Sundays closed)
Green Earth offers amazing vegan food for reasonable prices. Apart from Friday the place is only open for lunch, so have this in mind for your planning. We went there on a sunny spring day so we could enjoy the atmosphere in the little yard of Green Earth in front of the restaurant. We had the lunch set for 850JPN which comes with a soup. Everything tasted great and and the portion sizes are also reasonable. As we are really crazy about vegan cakes we also had the apple pie and the cheesecake. We just cant resist to try all the vegan cheesecakes in the world. We were super surprised how delicious the cheesecake was, you couldn’t tell the difference to a non-vegan cheesecake. The smell of the apple pie was heavenly and so was the pie. We also tried the Kampucha. Because the food is such a good bargain we decided to take some food away for our train ride to Tokyo in the evening.The owner was super friendly and packed everything in our own bowls, so we didn’t produce any waste.
Price: 2.700JPN for 2 Lunch Sets + 2 cakes + Kampuchea (absolutely amazing for Japan)
Paprika Shokudou
(Opening hours: 11:30am-2pm, 17:30–22:00, Monday & Thursday only 17:30–22:00)
This hip and cozy place is open during lunch and dinner time so we went there twice for dinner. The menu has many options so it didn’t become boring to go there a second time. The first visit we had the vegan hamburger set and the teriyaki seasoned broiled eel. Don’t wonder about the Hamburger set, in Japan if you order a Hamburger it often only comes the patty without bread. That is Japanese style. I really loved the eel, this is something what is very Japanese and you can’t find it very often as a vegan version. This was my first time I had it and I would highly recommend to try it. After having this 2 things we were still hungry, because the eel comes basically alone. So we ordered a rice bowl (Donburi) with stir fried soy meat with yakiniku sauce. We both liked it and finished every single bit of it. For 1.190JPN the Donburi dishes are much better value for money than just the eel. You can also order the rice bowl with eel which I did the second time we went. This is is much more filling. Furthermore we had the deep fried oyster mushroom dinner set, the cheesecake and the brownie. We are always hungry and can never resist cake. The cheesecake was similar to Green Earth’s cheesecake very delicious and the brownie was nice, but not super special. They also offer 2 types of desert of the day and during our second visit they had tiramisu. There was only one left so we shared it with our friends. The tiramisu is also recommended. The prices are a bit higher but you should definitely try the oysters, eel and cheesecake. Two times we were there Paprika Shokudou was quite crowded with both locals and tourists.
Price: 4.200JPN for the first visit and 5.000JPN for the second
Slices
(Opening Hours: 12:00pm-12:00am)
Slices is not a vegan restaurant, but they offer an extra menu only for vegans and are located in the centre of Osaka. We went there to try the famous Japanese cabbage dish Okonomiyaki. It was very delicious we really loved it. Can’t say much about the other dishes but they are mainly Western style. After being in Japan for 2 weeks I didn’t find any other good vegan Okonomiyaki.
Have fun in Osaka and let us know how you liked all the vegan choices.
Here is the map for your trip to Osaka. Just click on the top right corner and the map will open within Google Maps on your phone or desktop. Afterwards you can find this map saved in “My Maps” in your Google Maps Account. If you are in Osaka just open the map and find all places easily.
