Los Angeles: A Vegan Adventure
Venice Beach at sunset — check out the nearby Double Zero for amazing vegan pizza.
When your employer sends you to Los Angeles for work, you’ve got to take advantage! I’d heard rumours of LA’s vegan scene but getting to experience it myself in August 2019 was a dream.
Countless vegan food options + just a few days = decision dilemmas for this indecisive pisces. But decisions were made and the result is these recs:
Hinterhof German Kitchen & Beer Garden – Vegan German food? Sounds like an oxymoron, right? But this place works! Vegan kasespaztle, wienerschnitzel, currywurst, maultaschen – chef’s kiss!
Double Zero Venice Beach – Brought to you by Matthew Kenney of NYC’s flagship Double Zero location. Pizza is pizza, right? Wrong. The crust at Double Zero is phenomenal – a must try! They chalk it up to their flour being very finely ground with lower gluten content that holds up in the high heat of a wood fired pizza oven.
Crossroads Kitchen – I couldn’t get there for their dinner menu so brunch it was! They were sold out of the super popular Khachapuri (almond ricotta / yellow tomato egg yolk) so I tackled the ‘eggs’ benedict with shiitake bacon and tomato hollandaise sauce.
Donut Friend – As a veggie, I thought my donut days were over. Enter Donut Friend!
Sage Plant Based Bistro & Brewery – The menu is huge and coming from a small Canadian city without a single vegan restaurant, I was overwhelmed with all the options. I started with the tempura jalapeno with cashew dill ‘cheese’ to start and the buffalo cauliflower with pesto pizza for the main.
Real Food Daily – I’m a fan of their cookbook (it features the BEST vegan gravy recipe ever) so I was very keen to check them out in person for lunch. The butternut squash yam and sea vegetable croquette with pesto was lovely.
If you don’t have time to visit multiple restaurants, hit up the Vegan Street Fair. It typically takes place in North Hollywood on Saturdays and Sundays. The pandemic put a pause on the weekly event so check out veganstreetfair.com before heading out.
Besides a plethora of vegan food trucks to tempt you, the portions are intentionally small so you can try multiple items. My favs were:
Dina’s Dumplings - Cabbage, celery, woodear mushroom, shitake mushroom, spinach and organic tofu.
Man Eating Plant - Fried Shroom Bao is a delicious lotus-steamed bun, beer-battered king oyster shrooms, cashew hoisin, pea sprouts, cilantro, scallions, pickled chilis and roasted chili oil.
The Donuttery – Pistachio cake donut made with wheat flour and house-milled pistachio flour.
I’m hoping to visit LA again in 2022 for Vegan Adventure 2.0. So stay tuned for even more recs soon!
xx Rachel
Polar Berry Club, Strawberry Lab and Youth Brulee vegan donuts from Donut Friend.
Butternut squash, yam and sea vegetable croquette with pesto from Real Food Daily.
Cashew cream, wild mushrooms, tuscan kale and lemon vinaigrette pizza from Double Zero.
‘Eggs’ benedict with shiitake bacon and tomato hollandaise from Crossroads Kitchen.