Santa Fe, New Mexico, is a captivating travel destination that offers creative and healthy dining options. This guide explores the best vegan restaurants in Santa Fe, updated regularly to reflect the latest culinary experiences. Beyond vegan eats, Santa Fe boasts a range of activities and attractions, offering something for every traveler.
Venturing Beyond the Plaza
While the Santa Fe Plaza has its charms, including museums and Cafe Pasqual's, the best dining experiences often lie on the outskirts. The Plaza can be crowded with tourists, and the food may not represent the city's culinary peak.
Top Vegan Restaurant Picks
Horno: This restaurant, discovered during a vegan menu item challenge in Santa Fe, offers exceptional dishes. The vegan dumplings are a must-try, and reservations are highly recommended due to its popularity.
Paloma: Known for its cauliflower dish and salsa/guacamole appetizer, Paloma also features a variety of delicious non-alcoholic beverages. The grapefruit and ginger sodas, made fresh in-house, are highly recommended. The dining room is beautifully decorated, the service is excellent, and the patio is charming.
Cafe Pasquals: This is the best brunch place, and they’ll sub tofu for eggs in most dishes.
Read also: Guide to Healthy Eateries in Santa Maria
La Choza: La Choza has a delicious vegan posole and a fairly good vegan tostada. Great service and tons of locals make it definitely worth your stop. Their margaritas and bar are fantastic, and their colorful dining room is a fun and relaxing place to spend an hour.
Santacafe & Coyote Cafe: For a splurge-worthy experience, visit Santacafe and its sister restaurant, Coyote Cafe. While vegan options aren't explicitly on the menu, they can create exceptional vegan meals upon request. These restaurants offer a five-star dining experience.
Restaurant Martin: Another splurge-worthy option, Restaurant Martin's veggie plate is a culinary delight. The restaurant features killer service, a James Beard award-winning chef, a great wine list, and fantastic food.
Jambo Cafe: This cafe offers incredible curries and veggie finds. A visit to the adjoining store selling African imports is also recommended.
Paper Dosa: The dosa "appetizers" are incredible and huge. Much of the menu is vegan or can be made vegan, and they have a pretty patio and great service. The house-made ginger soda is great!
Read also: Healthy Restaurants: Santa Barbara Guide
Sweetwater Harvest Kitchen: This cute restaurant offers awesome vegan seasonal options. It's a sweet restaurant with great service.
Joseph’s Pub: This homey space with fantastic veggie options, many of their dinner entrees can be made vegan. Joseph’s is great for a date night or special occasion.
Vinaigrette: Vinaigrette is good for fresh salads. Their salads are hit or miss, so give it a few tries if you haven’t quite found one you like yet. Vinaigrette lives in a landmark adobe house at the end of a dusty lane in the historic northeast of town. Smaller and cozier than their other locations, with a gnarled old apricot shading the brick patio, the OG Vinny features fat double adobe walls dotted with Judith Bever’s produce-centric oil paintings, signature bright green tile, and happy bar pendants. This is where it all started! They planted 12 trees here and a whole bunch of grasses and perennials! The first Vinaigrette opened in 2008, in a funky adobe house in downtown Santa Fe, but the idea was germinated three years prior, on ten parched acres in northern New Mexico that was slowly becoming a sustainable farm. Around the same time she was learning how to grow food in the high desert, with its scarce water and slim soils, owner/founder Erin Wade had the idea for a restaurant that served delicious and satisfying entrée salads-a place that made healthy eating joyful and easy. She began developing the menus and concept with the produce she was growing. This synchronicity underlies the company’s ethos and operations today, with the original Nambe farm supplying seasonal products (mixed greens, arugula, kale, peppers, peaches, apricots, cherries, apples, tomatoes, scallions, basil, heirloom potatoes, beans, mint, and eggs) for the New Mexico restaurants and then composting their organic waste into nutrient-rich soil amendments for the garden beds. Vinaigrette Santa Fe was followed by Vinaigrette ABQ in 2012, on historic Route 66, and Austin in 2016, under the shade of a four hundred year old Live Oak just off of bustling South Congress. What motivates their expansion is not drive for world salad domination, but a desire to knit themselves into communities where they can be a positive and meaningful presence. My favorite salads are: ASIAN CHOPPED SALAD -Chopped Napa & red cabbage and rice noodles, with julienned red bell peppers, scallions, shredded carrots, cilantro and peanuts. Tossed with a miso ginger vinaigrette and topped with crispy noodles. THE NUTTY PEAR-FESSOR -Balsamic-roasted pears, bacon crumbles, toasted pecan halves and earthy blue cheese served with tender greens and ruby port vinaigrette. I love adding flank steak to this! Their BLACK BEAN & KALE NACHOS are to die for too!! Soooo delish with avocado and cilantro cream, and fresh tortilla chips! The tonics are so exquisite too!!
Annapurna’s World Vegetarian Cafe: A reliable choice for Ayurvedic food, Annapurna's offers healing and fresh meals. With locations in Santa Fe and Albuquerque, it's a great option for calming the travel gut after a long day.
Iconik Coffee: With two locations, Iconik Coffee is a must-visit. The Lupe location offers Dukkah Toast, while the Lena location features delicious bowls that can be made vegan. The Lena location is near a pottery studio, meditation studio, vegan bakery, and vegetarian cafe, with a super pretty garden to walk through.
Read also: Healthy food access with Highmark Wholecare explained.
Rowley Farmhouse Ales: This brewery features a great outdoor patio and excellent vegan burgers, along with their beer.
Teahouse: Located at the end of Canyon Road, the Teahouse serves fresh vegetarian and vegan soups, salads, and lentil dishes.
Kakawa: Delicious for chocolates and elixirs. Many of their chocolates are vegan!
The Farmer’s Market: One of the yummiest ways to spend your Saturday morning is to meet the famers, bakers, and coffee roasters selling their goods in the Railyards.
Root 66 Cafe: Bringing you the best plant-based food in Santa Fe, Root 66 Cafe strives to use as many organic and local ingredients as possible. Enjoy a deli with scrumptious salads & sandwiches from Monday - Thursday, along with various treats from JACK’S MAGIC BAKERY. This is the only place in New Mexico where you can get JACK’S Original Vegan Biscochitos too!!! On Fridays, come back to experience a day dedicated to presenting JACK’S MAGIC BAKERY; you’ll find vegan versions of favorites like challah, babka, rugelach, and much more! Highly recommend the Cranberry Chickpea Salad Sandwich-sweet & tender base of chickpeas mixed with celery, red onion, shredded carrots, and dried cranberries. Served with butter lettuce on a vegan challah sub from Jack’s Magic Bakery. The Baby "Crab" Cakes are soooo scrumptious too!!! Made from a base of hearts of palm & chickpeas & seasoned like the sea. Served with a drizzle of cocktail sauce or lemon aioli or be adventurous and get both! The House Made Organic Iced Oat Milk Matcha Tea’s are not to be missed either! The Jerusalem Bagels are simply divine too! Although it is called a bagel, this bread is not boiled and it originates in the Middle East. Found all over the Old City of Jerusalem, this ultimate “bagel” is shaped into an oblong ring and covered with a sweet sesame crunch. Served w/ olive oil and za’atar for dipping. The Jewish Rye Boule is an excellent choice too! This round loaf full of very flavorful caraway seeds is absolutely perfect to take home and make sandwiches with!! Melvin and Henry love their organic and vegan treats too from the Magic Bark-ery!
Counter Culture: Counter Culture Cafe was established in 1996. They use only the finest locally sourced organic ingredients including Fano Bread, Aroma Organic Coffee, Local Sprouts, 100% Real Maple Syrup, Non GMO Oil, Organic Greens, Horizon Yogurt, New Mexico Beef, Filtered H2O, Redbird Natural Chicken and Ecco To-Go Containers to name a few. I really love everything they make but this trip I had to try the Fall Salad- mixed greens, roasted beets, bleu cheese, chimayo chile walnuts & balsamic vinaigrette and I added roasted chicken!!!! It was so delish!
Thai On Canyon: Most delicious Thai restaurant on Canyon Road! Highly recommend Fresh Thai Rolls - green leaves, cucumber, carrots, mints leaves, Thai basil, bean sprouts, thin rice noodles, cooked shrimp with homemade hoisin sauce. The Papaya Salad is also incredible! Green papaya, cherry tomatoes, green beans, roasted unsalted peanut, muddled with a hot chili-lime dressing. The PAD THAI (NATIONAL DISH OF THAILAND) is some of the best Pad Thai I have ever tasted. Thin rice noodles sautéed in tamarind seasoning sauce, shallot, baked tofu, sweet radish, egg, bean sprouts, green onion, crushed peanut (optional), chili powder (optional).
Modern General: Modern General feed & Seed opened in SANTA FE in 2015, but was in the works before that!
Tender Fire Kitchen: The best pizza and salad ever!! Their dough rises for 48-72 hours. It’s a practice of patience, trust & unpredictability. Definitely a labor of love! It’s the listening and attention to the weather, the moisture in the air, the texture of the dough! This balance between slowness and speed, tenderness and fire can be found in the quintessential essence of the heart, timing. When you work with natural leaven, you are giving the bacteria enough time to break down the fructan, which is what most people that are gluten free are actually sensitive to. This means that the dough not only has a more complex flavor profile, but that it is the healthiest and most digestible pizza dough you can eat! They work with local farmers to grow the most incredible ingredients for the pizzas and salads. How far food travels not only impacts the world, but changes the flavor and nutrient impact of the food. They work with farmers that tend the land in regenerative ways, bringing health back to the soil, back to the community + all the way to our mouths!! It’s SOOO good y’all! Dates on pizza is definitely a new favorite for me!! And definitely get one of their salads! And try their vegan pizza too!
Cleopatra’s: Exquisite Mediterranean food!! The Falafel Sandwich is sooo delightful. Ground Garbanzo beans with a unique blend of spices and parsley garnished with sliced tomato & served with homemade sauce on a pita bread. Incredible Gyros too! Lamb, lettuce, onion, tomato, fresh homemade sauce served on a pita bread.
Santa Fe Farmers Market: Voted one of the “Top Ten Farmers’ Markets” by Sunset Magazine, the Santa Fe Farmers’ Market is one of the oldest, largest, and most successful growers’ markets in the country. Serving more than 150 farmers and producers in 15 Northern New Mexico counties, the Market brings fresh food, education, and fun to our community and promotes small farms and sustainable agriculture in Northern New Mexico. Unlike most farmers’ markets in the US, the Santa Fe Farmers’ Market assures that all products sold by its vendors are always locally grown by the people selling them. 100% of the vegetables, fruits, and nursery plants available at Santa Fe Farmers’ Markets are grown right here in northern New Mexico. The same goes for at least 70% of the ingredients and materials used to make all processed and craft items. Furthermore, no reselling is permitted. That means that the people doing the growing and producing are the same smiling folks who sell those products to you at Market. It truly is the best market I have ever visited!!!!!
Nourished: Open Seven Days a Week Serving our Full Menu 9am - 6pm, Wednesday - Sunday 9am - 4pm Monday & Tuesday Nourished offers a seasonal menu featuring locally grown and wild ingredients. Supporting Local Farmers Green Chile Stew potato, carrot, kale, mushroom Ginger Sweet Potato Soup sweet potatoes, ginger, celery, onions, coconut milk, basil Local Greens Salad seasonal local mixed greens with vegetable topping, lemon herb dressing Beet Salad marinated beets, local seasonal greens, onion, roasted pecans, balsamic dressing Black Bean Burger sprouted black beans, tomato, sunflower seeds, mixed vegetables, gf oats, tomato, local chile, onions, Killer whole wheat bun gf bread option Chickpea Salad chickpea mix, seasonal local greens, red onions, lemon herb dressing Chickpea Sandwich sprouted garbanzo beans, celery, carrots, dill with lettuce, red onion, Vegenaise on whole wheat season buns.
Places to Avoid
For lunch and dinner, avoid Bumble Bees and Tune-Up.
Additional Dining Recommendations
La Choza: A favorite spot for New Mexican cuisine, La Choza offers a casual and homey vibe. Be prepared for a wait. The posole is a standout dish.
Radish & Rye: This restaurant offers locally-sourced, farm-to-table Southern-tinged cuisine with vegetarian options. The cocktails are also noteworthy.
Cafecito: A cute Argentine spot for great empanadas and mate.
Sweet Treats
Clafoutis: A French cafe offering perfect croissants and cannelle.
Whoo’s Donuts: Donuts made with high-quality ingredients and creative flavors.
Kakawa Chocolate: A must-try for drinking chocolate.
Beyond Food: Santa Fe Experiences
Meow Wolf: An interactive art experience.
The Georgia O’Keefe Museum: A great introduction to Georgia’s artwork.
Ten Thousand Waves: A hot springs spa in the style of a Japanese onsen.
Canyon Road: A street studded with art galleries.
Day trip to Taos: Visit the Pueblo, stroll through the historic downtown, and see the Earthships.
Las Conchas Trailhead: A beautiful place for a hike or picnic.
Nambe Lake Trail: A popular trail ending in an alpine lake.
Atalaya Mountain and Picacho Loop: A hike with stunning overviews of the city.
Accommodation
Consider an Airbnb for a private and reasonably priced option or Los Poblanos for a luxury hotel experience.