Vegan & vegetarian Japan
We checked everything else.
85 Tokyo tables visited, tasted and decoded — the hidden dashi, the egg in the noodles, the honey in the tare — with real links to book and the exact Japanese to show the staff.
Eat by craving
The answer sheet
One page, one verdict each. We read the manufacturer’s own label or ask the kitchen, then say plainly whether it’s vegan — and when the honest answer is “it depends”, we say that instead of guessing.
Why trust us
No scraped listings, no guesswork. A guide is only as good as its last meal — so every entry begins with a reservation of our own.
Phrasebook
Pick your diet and hold your phone up to the staff. The exact Japanese to say what you can’t eat — plus the hidden traps (dashi, mirin, wheat in the soy) that catch first-timers.
Show this to staff →In season at the market
In season at the market
In season at the market
In season at the market
By diet
Deer, temples, and Nara's quiet vegan scene
Nara's plant-based scene is small but real: five fully vegan restaurants clustered near Nara Park and the two stations, plus an honest look at why there's no shojin ryori restaurant at Todai-ji itself.
Rice, kōji, and distilled alcohol — no dairy, egg, honey, or fish in standard mirin.
Yes, standard mirin is vegan — here's what's actually in hon-mirin, shio-mirin, and mirin-fu chōmiryō, plus the one label warning worth checking and one you can ignore.
5 verified plant-based restaurants in Naha, plus a dedicated vegan menu at the airport
Naha's vegan scene is small but real: five owner-run restaurants within walking distance of Kokusai-dori serve fully plant-based Okinawan food, and Naha Airport has its own dedicated vegan menu. Here's what's confirmed, with hours, prices, and honest caveats as of July 2026.
From a fully vegan bakery-café in Motomachi to century-old Chinatown restaurants with dedicated vegan menus — eight real, verified options across Yokohama.
Yokohama has only a handful of fully vegan restaurants, but it also has something almost no other Japanese city offers: two century-old Chinatown institutions with real, separately prepared vegan menus. Here are eight verified places, from Motomachi to Yokohama Station to Chinatown.
Tokyo
From a gluten-free "sweets lab" in Hiroo to a strawberry-cake cult favorite by Shinjuku Gyoen, here's where to find genuinely 100%-vegan cakes, croissants, and pastries in Tokyo — plus the hidden animal ingredients to watch for at ordinary bakeries.
Nagoya
Nagoya isn't the first city vegan travelers think of, but it has a small, solid cluster of fully plant-based kitchens and one shojin-ryori udon house with a genuine vegan menu — here's where to go and what to order.
Plant-based & planet-friendly
Eating plant-based in Japan, made joyful: where to eat, what to buy, the festivals to find your people — and a warm look at the good your choices do for the planet.
Explore Vegan Japan
