8 places & plates worth a plant-based detour
Ordered from the city's landmark vegan restaurants to the northern dishes and festival eats — and we'll flag which is which.
The vegan-vegetarian café people in Chiang Mai talk about most, and there's a queue not only for the food but because the profits support a foundation that helps stateless Burmese children and refugees. The menu is vegan, half Asian and half Western — green curry with tofu, buddha-bowl salads, sandwiches, and dairy-free, egg-free cakes. Upstairs there's a charity thrift shop too. To be honest, people come to fill both stomach and conscience. Get there before noon if you can.
If you want northern-Thai food without meat that still tastes genuine, Pun Pun is the name people have recommended for years. It sits in the grounds of Wat Suan Dok and is part of a seed-saving and self-reliant-farming learning centre, so a lot of the vegetables are grown on site, organically. The menu shifts with what's ready — tam khanun, home-style vegetable curries, chili dips, and freshly cooked brown rice. The flavours are honest and homey, the setting is a leafy garden, and it suits anyone who wants healthy northern food somewhere quiet.
A Thai vegetarian-vegan restaurant in the old city that does a full menu of Thai and northern dishes with no meat — pad thai, green curry with tofu, mushroom tom yum, plus northern plates. It swaps in tofu and soy protein convincingly, and the seasoning is properly bold, not washed-out. It's named for the butterfly-pea flower (anchan) used to give rice and drinks a natural blue colour. It's a place strict jay eaters and vegan travellers come to because whatever you order, you can be sure there's no meat in it.
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A fully vegan café in the old city that's a hit with foreigners and the health-minded crowd. The menu is international — buddha bowls, plant-based burgers, brunch pancakes, smoothie bowls, and dairy-free, egg-free desserts — with a juice and cocktail bar too. The vibe is relaxed and easy to settle into for a while. To be honest, the cooking leans more Western café than Thai, so it's the spot for a day you want something light and clean, or a corner to work in with a drink.
A Thai-vegan restaurant brand that started in Bangkok and opened a Chiang Mai branch well-known among foreign travellers. The food is Thai vegan made easy to enjoy — massaman with tofu, vegan pad thai, mushroom tom kha, and a dairy-free mango sticky rice. Another draw is its Thai vegan cooking classes for anyone who wants to recreate the dishes at home. It's a friendly entry point for people new to eating vegan who'd also like to try cooking Thai food themselves.
Here's a northern dish plant-based eaters can love right away — nam prik num, a dip of roasted young green chilies pounded with garlic and shallots, mild and smoky, eaten with steamed vegetables (pumpkin, long beans, eggplant, cabbage) and sticky rice. The trick for vegans is to ask for it without fermented fish (pla ra) or shrimp paste; many places will do it, and some already make a jay version. It's a genuine northern meal that's filling and healthy, found at northern restaurants across town and at festival stalls.
Northern food has several all-vegetable dishes that turn vegan with no trouble. Tam khanun (young jackfruit simmered with curry paste and herbs) has a meaty, stringy texture but is all-vegetable when made jay, and a rustic mixed-vegetable curry like gaeng khae packs several vegetables into one herbal broth — just ask for it without meat. These dishes are northern Thailand's vegetable wisdom from long before "vegan" was a buzzword. Try them at Pun Pun or any northern restaurant that runs a jay menu.
During the vegetarian festival around October, Warorot Market (Kad Luang) and Chiang Mai's Chinatown turn into a plant-based paradise. Stalls and charity kitchens fly the yellow jay flag and serve food with no meat, egg or dairy, avoiding the pungent vegetables — jay noodle soups, curry over rice, jay sweets and fried snacks, all for just a few baht a plate. To be honest, some of it uses soy protein to mimic meat so closely you'd be fooled. It's the most fun time to graze across a huge range of meat-free food in one place.