The best vegetarian restaurants in Edinburgh, 2026

Edinburgh has a longer and stranger history with vegetarian cooking than most British cities. Hendersons opened in 1962. Kalpna in the early 1980s. David Bann in 2002. These are not new arrivals chasing a trend — they are restaurants that have been quietly running for decades and have shaped what vegetarian dining in this city looks like.

The new wave is interesting too. Some of the best vegetable cooking in 2026 is happening in places that no one calls vegetarian — Holm, Aizle, the Stuart Ralston-adjacent rooms — but where the veg menu is no longer an afterthought. I have included those because pretending they are not part of the picture would be daft.

If you want to find the supper clubs and chef collaborations that move through these kitchens, the Edinburgh food events filter on Rifio will catch them.

1. David Bann

The strict-vegetarian benchmark. The menu has a proper point of view, the kitchen has a sense of season, and the room is grown up without being precious. Most vegetarian restaurants of this vintage become caricatures of themselves and David Bann simply has not.

The ricotta gnudi when it is on, the various smoked-tofu plates, and the puddings are all the business. Bookings are sane and they handle the Fringe-month volume without the kitchen falling over.

Around £35-£45 a head with a glass of wine. The Sunday dinner format is the easy entry point.

2. Kalpna

Forty years of Gujarati and South Indian vegetarian cooking. The lunch thali is one of the best plates of food in the city for any kind of money — five or six dishes, rice, breads, pickles, all properly cooked, all distinctively spiced.

The dinner menu rotates more than people give it credit for. The Sindhi kadhi when it is on, the various stuffed vegetable preparations, and the dosa list are the orders. Untill you have eaten here you do not really know how good Edinburgh's vegetarian scene is.

It is not a restaurant that has changed much in twenty years and that is the point.

3. Holm

Newington, small room, the chef has worked in the right places. The headline menu is Scottish-seasonal omnivore but the vegetarian tasting that runs alongside is a serious piece of work. The cooking pulls from across Europe but with a proper sense of what is in season at the Pentlands and from the east coast farms.

Six to eight courses, around £55, and the wine list runs natural without being annoying about it. Book at least three weeks ahead, more in Fringe month.

4. Hendersons

A proper Edinburgh institution. The Hanover Street basement has been doing the same vegetarian salad bar and bistro format for sixty years and it works because the produce is good and the cooking is honest.

The salad bar at lunch is £12-£15 for a full plate and is the value play. The bistro upstairs is sit-down with a longer menu and the daily specials are usually the order. The shop on the way out is worth knowing about for vegetarian cheese and the kind of products you cannot find in a supermarket.

Not exciting in the contemporary sense and that is fine. Some restaurants exist to feed people well at a fair price for sixty years.

5. Aizle (The Garden Room)

Stuart Ralston has been the most interesting chef in Edinburgh for the better part of a decade. The Aizle tasting room runs a vegetarian menu alongside the main one and it is often, genuinely, the better of the two. The cooking with vegetables is more inventive than the cooking with meat and fish, possibly because it has fewer crutches.

Around £80-£95 for the menu, plus wine pairing. Book three or four weeks out and book early in Fringe month or you will not get in.

6. Tuk Tuk

Two locations. Not strictly vegetarian but the veg half of the menu is most of what they cook. Indian street food format, dishes around £6-£10 each, you order four or five between two and walk out properly fed for £25-£30 a head.

The pani puri, the various aloo tikki preparations, and the dosa specials are the orders. It is fast, easy, and they take walk-ins in a way the smarter rooms do not.

7. Mums Great Comfort Food

Forrest Road, comfort food, mash and pies and so on. The vegetarian section is bigger and better than the format suggests and the veggie haggis is the Edinburgh tourist order that is also genuinely good. Around £15-£20 a head and reliably alot of food.

Best at lunch, best when you are properly hungry, best when you do not want to think about it.

What I left off

I have left off the chains entirely, including the ones that do a decent vegetarian menu. I have left off a couple of the newer pop-ups that have not been around long enough to call. I have left off two strict-vegetarian places that I have eaten at recently and was not impressed by. Not naming them.

I have also left off the various vegan restaurants on Hanover Street and the West End that I do not eat at often enough to rank fairly.

How I use the list

For a proper grown-up dinner: David Bann.

For the lunch thali experience: Kalpna.

For a tasting-menu night: Holm or Aizle, both are properly serious.

For an easy, walk-in feed: Tuk Tuk.

For the cheap quick lunch: Hendersons salad bar.

The food events at all of these — supper clubs, chef collaborations, special menus — are on the Edinburgh food filter on Rifio.