Updated: October 29th, 2016!
Vegan Prague, yo. Holy crap has Prague has gotten so hip and vegan since I lived there in 2009! I used to struggle to find soymilk in cafes there, but now you can even buy vegan cheese from the US! The amount of vegan places, hip coffee shops and organic stores has skyrocketed and there are even vegan grocery stores and hipster coffee shops galore. Thus, below a totally revamped and expanded vegan Prague guide, yippee!
Useful Czech food words for vegans:
Lahůdkové Droždí = nutritional yeast
Celozrna psenicka mouka = whole wheat flour
Cizrna = chick peas
Kukuřičný škrob = cornstarch
Hladka mouka = fine-grained flour (svetla is bleached and polosvetla is unbleached)
Lepek = gluten
Sojové mléko = soymilk
bez = without
s, se = with
Where to Stay in Prague
Hostels
Sir Toby’s Hostel – I have not stayed here myself, but came across it while searching for vegan-friendly hostels in Prague. They serve an all vegetarian breakfast in their traditional beer pub onsite. Out of the center, but not far, in a cool less touristy area, all good things to me. It gets good ratings online. Prices are around €11 for a bed in a dorm and €30 for a private single room.
Hostel Lipa – This is in one of my favorite areas of Prague, sorta the hipster area, near the train station and lots of vegan places. It’s super close to Vegan City, which makes a rad vegan pho. Moment Cafe is not far either and there’s a Mama Coffee in the area too to get your soya latte fix! Seems like a smaller cosy hostel with a nice owner. Haven’t been myself, but gets great reviews! Prices from €11 for a bed in a dorm to around €30 for a private room.
Other
I super highly recommend looking on Booking.com for an affordable place to stay. You can get really great deals on both hotels and hostels, often hotels for hostel prices (I’ve gotten hotels with breakfast for 25€ per night!). They also have free cancellation on most bookings if your plans aren’t solid yet!
Click here for a direct link to their Prague page or use this search box to browse yourself:
Vegan or Vegan-friendly Cafes with Soymilk
Můj šálek kávy- Křižíkova 105, Praha 8 (Karlin)
http://www.mujsalekkavy.cz/
Even though I lived in Prague for 6 months in 2009 and visit often, I had never been to the Karlin district, which seems to be the new start-up, up and coming hip stuff center. My friend took me here and I got an amazing coffee made with coconut milk, dark chocolate, two shots of espresso and coconut flakes, so you can drink and eat it at the same time ;-). It gets really crowded so you may want to make a table reservation on their website if you’re going at a normally busy time.
Coconut milk mocha from Můj šálek kávy
Friends Coffee House – Palackého 7, Prague 1
http://milujikavu.cz/en/
Two words: Pumpkin Latte. Soymilk available, of course. They also have free wifi and were on a lot of “good cafes to work in” lists I found, so there’s that! As an American, when autumn comes around it’s good to know there’s a place to fill that pumpkin latte craving. Besides this not much vegan here.
Moment Cafe – Slezská 62, Praha 2
This place was my favorite new find. Menu is in Czech only, but the people working there speak English. It definitely didn’t exist when I lived in Prague and it’s an all vegan cafe! Yes! It’s super cute, has a lot of tables, wifi (second time wifi didn’t work though) and a backroom where children tend to hang out, plus a middle room with another table and a book nook. They have cakes, coffees and sandwiches and do lunch specials starting at noon, I believe. The lunch specials are homemade healthy-ish fair, super yummy, fills you up without making you feel like you swallowed a bottle of oil. They pay attention to detail in the presentation of things, I liked it!
This was a tempeh veggie sandwich with mushrooms and other things on it and homemade vegan mayo, yummy! Look how cute they wrapped it up!
Standard vegan soy latte
Mini tofu scramble wrap
The second time I went I forgot my phone, hence, no camera. However, I got this chocolate trifle in a cup thing that was to DIE for. In fact, the person working there told me it was a miracle there were any left when I came because they’re usually gone quite early. I also got the lunch the second time, a nice fresh veggie salad with cabbage and mushroom risotto. Two thumbs up, was a great little place to get some work done, too, though there is a busy lunch rush.
Mamacoffee – Vodičkova 6, Prague 1 (also lots of other locations)
http://mamacoffee.cz
Mama Coffee was my favorite find my first time in Prague and I still love it. There are way more locations now (see link above or Google it), but the biggest and main one is in Prague 1 in the center and it’s two stories tall. Above is a delicious Vegan Apple Strudel and a Soy Latte. I like that they serve a little glass of water with the coffees. It also always comes with a tiny chocolate bar, but it’s not always vegan. This place also has free wifi if you go to one that has tables, priced reasonably and all their coffee is fair-trade. Lots of different coffee roasts to choose from.
The one on Vodičkova also has vegan food now! They had a lot of tapas like things, hummus, etc. and a bean burger. Awesome! If you see vegan food or treats at any of the other ones, report back! Only so much coffee this girl could drink!
Bakeshop – Kozí 1, Prague 1
http://www.bakeshop.cz/
I haven’t been here yet, but someone on the expats.cz forum mentioned they have soymilk. I just e-mailed them to confirm and they replied within 20 minutes! Here’s what they said: “yes, we make a coffee with soy milk. We will be very happy be part of your soy milk list. We make also some vegan salads and breads. If you are interested about more informations feel free to contact us on 222-316-823.” Sounds good to me! With a quick and great reply like that, I will definitely be headed there soon.
MyRaw Cafe – Gourmet Pasáž, Dlouhá 39, Praha 1
http://www.myraw.cz/
I also haven’t been here, but a reader says, “it’s wonderful, they have many milks available (no soya), they don’t make any of their food with soya either. I had an almond milk cappuccino and raspberry/beetroot cheesecake! DIVINE! The staff were really friendly, helpful and spoke good English.”. Let me know how it is if you go!
Vegan Restaurants in Prague
Estrella – Opatovická 17 Praha 1
http://www.estrellarestaurant.cz/
This place is right in the tourist center down a side street. It’s small inside, but I had one of the best vegan pho soups of my life here. Nice small changing menu and dog friendly. They brought my friend’s dog a little water bowl immediately as soon as we sat down.
Awesome lentil pate appetizer from Estrella
Aforementioned amazing vegan pho soup from Estrella
Burrito Loco – (multiple locations)
http://www.burritoloco.cz/
Not especially vegan-friendly, but when you need your Mexican fix, it’s possible to organize yourself a vegan burrito or order of nachos here if you order everything without cheese or sour cream and beans instead of meat. In fact, as I was doing this the person working there asked if I was vegan, so they know what vegan is, win! When I used to live in Prague, I always bemoaned the lack of Mexican food or a burrito place…now there is this one and it’s open 24/7! Wow! No seats inside but there are little counters to stand and eat at. My nachos above were surprisingly good, they also have a few hot sauces to choose from.
Country Life – Melantrichova 15, Prague 1
Also an organic shop in the front. You fill your plate from the buffet and they weigh it and you pay. They have vegan ice-cream here! I love this place. Pretty reasonably priced for what you get and the atmosphere is nice. No-smoking allowed inside which I love. So tired of inhaling everyone’s second-hand smoke. The best part about this place is they have free water, a luxury when you have to pay for water most everywhere else. This is why the statement “Beer is cheaper than water” is true.
loVeg – Nerudova 36, Prague 1
http://www.loveg.cz/ <— menu here too
This place was also new, all vegan restaurant with some Czech specialties, which I was super excited about. I love the vegan fair, but I find it’s the local traditional foods I often miss out on when traveling because these are rarely veganized…so this place is great for that! They also do curries and some general “fancy food”. A bit pricey for Prague, but I loved this place and would go back for sure. They also have vegan goulash if you want to check that off your Europe list.
Carpaccio made of red beet baked in maple syrup (gluten-free minus the bread)
I had never had the non-vegan version of Carpaccio, but this was yummy. Beets slices super thin, layered with shredded vegan cheese and arugula, and carmelised nuts, served with bread. The waiter talked up the vegan cheese, apparently made in the Czech Republic, I thought it was good but not mind-blowing. I sorta wished it was slices of vegan cheese instead, but I liked the dish nonetheless.
Beer. Enough Said. Look at the nice color of that one.
Vegan sirloin with vegan pieces, rice cream and cranberries, home made dumplings (Svíčková and knedliky)
Speaking of traditional Czech food, here you go. This was awesome. This was traditional Czech sauce made of marinated root vegetables served with cranberries and vegetable cream. Comes with vegan “meat” and dumplings. The veggie meat in here was awesome.
Vegan Viennese Coffee
I’d never had a Viennese coffee before, much less a vegan one, so this was excited! So tasty! Basically just a vegan coffee loaded with whipped cream and sprinkled with cocoa. It was super good.
Spelt Pancakes with Forest Fruits (Špaldové palačinky s lesnimi plody)
This was also awesome, delicious, but not sickeningly sweet so that was great. They LOADED it with forest fruits inside too, yes!
Loving Hut – Truhlářská 20, Prague 1 (Nové Město, but LOTS of locations)
http://www.lovinghut.cz
There are a BILLION locations of Loving Hut in Prague and they actually are the owners of the vegan grocery store too. I think I discovered my love of Loving Hut this trip. Lots of yummy comfort foods veganized. The location above that the photos are from has a lunch buffet by weight. I went a little crazy, as you can see from my plate below. Lots of salad, noodles, mock meat stews and curries and finger foods. AWESOME. They also have a menu and do vegan pho, wraps, curries with rice, burgers. Oh man just thinking about it is making me hungry.
My haul from the lunch buffet
Vegan beef stew from the lunch buffet
Manna Pizzeria – Urxova 483/5, Prague 3 (Karlín)
Have you discovered foursquare yet, oh smartphone users? I JUST realized on this trip that it was more besides telling people where you are on Facebook, and I’m glad I did! I used it a ton to search “vegan”, “wifi” or “soymilk” and found some good places that weren’t even on Happy Cow. This was one of them. Does not have the vegan “look” at all, very standard pizzeria-like, menu all in Czech, waitress didn’t speak much English. They used to have a separate vegan pizza men, but a reader recently informed me that there is no longer a separate vegan pizza menu, just a single vegan pizza on the regular menu.
Vegan cheese pizza
Vegan tomato soup
I used my very broken Czech to ask about vegan soups and the waitress told me the tomato soup was simple and vegan, so I ordered that. I may have had to ask for it without cream on top. Nothing crazy, but it was good.
Vegan City – Husitská 45, Prague 3 (close to the main train station, Praha hlavní nádraží)
http://www.vegancity.cz/
This is basically Loving Hut, but not owned by Loving Hut. Came kinda food, same idea. Fast-food style vegan food. They also have wifi and a mini-buffet, plus a tiny little grocery selection in the back. I went here twice as it was near my friend’s house, whom I was staying with.
Vegan Pho
I got this both times. There is a small and a main meal version. I got the small, because I wanted to try other things too, but it was still pretty substantial and so yummy!
Vegan mock duck wrap
Not bad, some vegan mayo and salad mix inside.
Vegan fried mock duck and vegetable stir-fry with rice
Pretty yummy, liked the mock duck. Not my absolute favorite flavor so I’d probably get a different one next time (lots of stir-fry options available), but it was tasty.
Etnosvět –Legerova 40, Praha 2
http://etnosvet.cz/en/
This is a an all-vegetarian restaurant with many clearly labeled vegan options. It’s more of a fancy small servings kinda place. I tend to be more of a big servings kinda person, but all the food we had was really good. Moderate prices.
Mock Peking Duck from Etnosvět
Vegan Steak Tartar made from roasted garlic, capers, red onion, salted bread crisps & rye bread crumble
My Raw Cafe – Gourmet Pasáž, Dlouhá 39, Prague 1
http://www.myraw.cz/
I haven’t been here personally, but a commenter highly recommended this place in Prague. They apparantly have a vegan 4-cheese plate!
Vegan Brunch in Prague
Radost FX – Bělehradská 234/120
http://radostfx.cz/restaurant/en/
Good for hungover mornings. A bit pricey at like $12-15 an entree, though.. It’s a vegetarian restaurant/lounge, though they have some fish, and a club downstairs at night. I hear the restaurant is open until late along with the club, but I haven’t tested this theory.
I’m sure there are more, let me know if you’ve had a good vegan brunch in Prague!
Vegan Grocery Stores
Veganz – Vinohradská 44, Prague 2
http://www.veganz.cz/en
Veganz, the big all-vegan chain grocery store, has made it to Prague! I haven’t been to the Prague one specifically, but the ones in Berlin are pretty good (albeit somewhat pricey). Good place to go for all your imported vegan goods as well as local finds. Looking on their website it looks like they have Tofurky, Field Roast, Daiya and all those American vegan products in Prague too, along with Violife and lots of German vegan stuff. They also do online shipping across the Czech Republic!
All Vegan – Sokolovská 35, Prague 3 (Karlín)
http://www.allvegan.cz
This place is pretty new, so I popped in to check it out. They have all the basics and some international vegan frozen food. Nothing compared the the vegan grocery stores in Berlin, but awesome that it’s there. They still had some empty shelves when I went, so more to come! They had a little cafe in front with smoothies and some quick cafe and soup kinda things.
Country Life
http://www.countrylife.cz/prodejny-biopotravin-a-zdrave-vyzivy-country-life <— locations here or Google it
A chain of health food stores, Country Life is pretty awesome. There’ are many you can find on the website and they also have a cosmetics store. Nowhere near as big as Whole Foods or something, but still pretty quality. The one on Melantrichova has a bulk foods section.
Eden Tesco – U Slavie 1527/3
Tesco is a huge grocery store chain from England, but they have a ton of vegan stuff like veggie meat, soymilk, nutritional yeast (in organic grain section), tofu, vegan mayo and tartar sauce. There are a few massive ones in Prague and this one is my favorite (and closest to my former flat). After scouring the city for a month to find nutritional yeast, realizing this Tesco has it was a bit embarrassing. Oops.
There’s another one by Narodni Trida, and I found this vegan Alpro Speculoos pudding there!
Bulk nuts, seeds, dried fruits
Diana—The Empire of Nuts
http://www.diana-company.cz/shops.aspx?l=1033
A few locations, lots of nuts in bulk. The name makes me giggle.
Other Vegan Restaurants Recommended by Commenters:
Maitrea
Mlsna Kavka
Lehka Hlava (beautiful inside) – good for special occasions
Maly Buddha
Jelica Biogurmania (they serve raw meals!)
Plevel – all vegan restaurant in my old neighborhood…what!
Again, this is a work in progress! Send me questions/comments/suggestions and your own additions if you’ve been to Prague!
Pin This Vegan Prague Guide:
I seem to remember another vegan buffet place that was run by monks of some kind. Not very helpful, but the food was cheap (even for Prague) and utterly fantastic. It was some kind of central asian food – Indian-ish, I thought, could be Pakistani, or some other. If you can find it, I bet you’ll love it.
Found this piece by way of Miss Colleen’s Storytime Blog.
Also, Starbucks finally came to Prague?! I was there in the spring of ’07, and the closest Starbucks was in Vienna.
I was in Prague last week and yes, there were a bunch of Starbucks 🙂
Hmm, I walked past an Indian vegetarian buffet place once called “Beas” that was sort of by I.P. Pavlova. Can’t remember the name of the street, but it was the one right after the station, going towards Namesti Miru. I’ve heard both good and bad things about it and want to check it out. There’s also a vegan Chinese food place called VegFood on Londynska, right down the road from Mama Coffee.
That’s funny that Starbucks is so new here, I had no idea! They’re much more expensive here than in the States, but they’re pretty prevalent.
Where did you live when you were in Prague?
Is it Govinda, run by Hari Krishnas?
Thank you for finding nutritional yeast. I also searched all over the city and I also live near that Tesco. Now I will be able to buy nutritional yeast any time day or night. Have you found popcorn kernels (not microwavable popcorn) or teff flour?
Thank you thank you thank you for letting me know where to find nutritional yeast in Prague! I have been here for a year and although I haven’t been THAT proactive at searching for it, I have missed it dearly. I am on my way now.
No problem, I’m happy I could help with the nutritional yeast dilemma! I’m addicted to it, basically, so I had to have it there. It took me a month of hardcore searching to find it though and knowing the Czech name definitely helped!
I know it may be too late to write my Prague vegan tips, hope it will help anyone :-).
I wouldn’t recommend Beas, haven’t been there, but my mom has. She was quite disappointed, as the food wasn’t much delicious, and surprised by the low quality of it.
What I would recommend, are these restaurants:
Country Life
Maitrea
Mlsna Kavka
Lehka Hlava
Maly Buddha
Jelica Biogurmania (they serve raw meals!)
these are my favourite. There are many indian restaurants as well (Govinda by Hare Krishnas, for example. But they are getting worse and worse, I mean the food is the same all the time. But still, if you want a good and tasty meal for reasonable price, go there!). And nowadays is the city full of those Vegan Cities and so on, but I don’t like them much, so I cannot say anything :-))).
@Anonymous April 16 – Wow, thanks for all the input! Good to have some more recent knowledge as I haven’t been living in Prague for awhile now, just visiting now and again. 🙂 I might add some of the restaurants you mentioned to my post if that’s okay, I’ll have to check them out next time I’m there!
It doesn’t look like they have nutritional yeast at the Tesco any more.
I know this is kind of a long shot, but I was in Prague in I think 2012 and I ate at this magical vegan restaurant and I wonder if anyone knows what it could be called? I feel like it may be the same place the first commenter mentioned. The interior had different themed rooms – I don’t remember most of them but the one I ate in was themed like the night sky, very dark with twinkly lights and beautifully painted walls. I seem to remember another room that was light blue with Gaudi style structured walls too. I also remember that they advertised ‘monks and enlightened people eat for free’. Again, I know it’s not a lot to go off, but if by some miracle someone knows where I mean I’d love to know the name of the place!
Oh hang on, silly me didn’t see that the article already mentioned it at the bottom. oops
Ah Lehka Hlava yes! That place is amazing!
i didn’t even know tesco used to sell nutritional yeast&it’s a pity they don’t anymore apparently(?). anyway, if it is of any interest to anyone here i buy nutritional yeast in the country life shops (and i don’t think i have seen in it anywhere else).
Update on Pizzeria Manna – there is no longer a separate vegan pizza menu, just a single vegan pizza on the regular menu. It is OK, but I’d rather get a non-cheese pizza at a better pizzeria, since I’m not a fan of vegan cheese anyway.
Das “My Raw – Cafe” im 1. ist auch sehr zu empfehlen! Sitz grade hier und hatte den Cappuccino Grande und die 4-Käseplatte 🙂
-> http://www.myraw.cz
Friends Coffee House – Don’t bother with this place, it’s useless for vegans, the only thing they have is soya milk (which I am allergic to).
Instead I went to MyRaw Cafe – it’s wonderful, they have many milks available (no soya), they don’t make any of their food with soya either. I had an almond milk cappuccino and raspberry/beetroot cheesecake! DIVINE! The staff were really friendly, helpful and spoke good English. WARNING: When entering from the main street, your vision is assaulted by a butcher’s shop at the entrance and there were loads of creatures hanging in the windows! Really not what vegans want to walk past!
I don’t see Secret of raw listed. Amazing place!