5 Great Places to Go for Vegan Food in Chiang Mai

As a vegan traveller, finding good, nutritious vegan options around the world isn’t always a given. I’ve found tips and tricks that work for me in challenging locations, and you can bet I’ll have bookmarked every vegan option within walking distance of any hotel I stay in.

Chiang Mai, on the other hand, needed none of this. If you’ve come here from Google, then you know this is just one of the many results out there sharing great vegan food in Chiang Mai. If anything, there’s too much choice, and I hope you packed some loose clothes.

In this post, I’ll walk you through my favourite finds for vegan food in Chiang Mai, and the dishes I’d recommend in each. Whether you visit one of these places, or another you come across, one thing I can promise you: You won’t leave hungry.

Why is There So Much Vegan Food in Chiang Mai?

Chiang Mai is often referred to as the “vegan capital of Asia”, and its a moniker that the city has well and truly earned. Thailand as a whole, in my experience, has been incredibly vegan friendly, but Chiang Mai just takes it to another level.

The city has hundreds of Buddhist temples, and even though veganism isn’t a hard pre-requisite for the faith, the Buddhist ideas around compassion and avoiding harm do naturally mean vegan food in Chiang Mai has become more common place.

Vegetarian and vegan options have been in Chiang Mai for decades, so it’s not a recent trend aimed at tourists, but it does make it a more attractive place for plant based travellers a digital nomads to set their sights on.

On top of that, Thai food is already pretty easy to adapt for a vegan lifestyle. It’s already so flavourful, so swapping out fish sauce and meat for soy sauce and tofu doesn’t mean you’re sacrificing the great flavours of the cuisine.

All of this put together means there’s no one solid reason for vegan food in Chiang Mai, but local businesses know there’s a market, visitors keep coming, and the wonderful plant based scene keeps thriving.

Pure Vegan Heaven

Pure Vegan Heaven was the first vegan restaurant we visited in Chiang Mai, and upon walking in, we were greeted by an adorable little cat. Already off to a good start.

The restaurant is bright and airy, with a mix of standard tables, and raised platforms with low tables to sit at cross-legged. Their menu is deliberately international, and while you will find Thai fare on it, you’ll also find dishes such as tacos and nachos. All of the food is whole foods based – when you see “cheeze” on the menu, it’ll be made from soy milk or cashew nuts, not the fake coconut oil based slices that I’m stuck with in my local Sainsbury’s.

Overall, the vibe here is like a chic, but down to earth brunch place. It’s the type of restaurant you can sit and stay awhile with a book, journaling, or chatting with friends.

To me, it seemed aimed more at Western tourists and digital nomads, rather than in the style of traditional Thai places, and with that, the prices are higher than you’ll find elsewhere in the city.

For us, it was the first introduction to vegan food in Chiang Mai after a long, restless night on the rather inappropriately named sleeper train, and it was a great introduction to the city’s vegan scene.

Away Chiang Mai

Away Chiang Mai is an interesting one because it’s a hotel as well as having an onsite restaurant.

You can read about our stay here, and I’d recommend it if you’re looking for a fully vegan hotel during your stay in Chiang Mai. Every morning, there’s a fully vegan buffet for breakfast, and the dishes change each day.

Even if you’re not a hotel guest, however, you can still visit the restaurant onsite. The restaurant is a mix of Thai and Western dishes, and as it’s part of a hotel, the prices are higher than you’ll find in other parts of the city – mains are about 250-300 baht (around £5.50 – £6.70).

The food quality is great, and they use mock meats like vegan chicken and pork in their dishes. The hotel is located just outside the old city, and it’s a good option if you’re staying in the neighbourhood.

Vegan Heaven

You might be thinking “wait Laura, you already mentioned this one”. Don’t scroll just yet. Vegan Heaven is an entirely different restaurant to Pure Vegan Heaven, and it deserves a mention. This place was a real gem. It’s just outside the old city walls, and close the vegan hotel we stayed in.

It’s a family run place, with a mix of Thai and Western food on the menu. You’ll get an excellent curry or stir fry here, but if you’ve been craving a burger or a mock-meat sandwich, they’ve got you covered too.

The atmosphere was homely, welcoming, and friendly, and prices super reasonable – you’re looking at about 100 THB (around £2.25 GBP) for a main. This was one of our favourite finds in Chiang Mai, and pinned on the “must return” list.

Vegan Society

Next on the list of vegan food in Chiang Mai is Vegan Society. It’s a slightly unusual one because it’s not just a restaurant; it’s also a homestay. From the outside, it feels like you’re walking through the gates into someone’s garden. The restaurant is tucked into that garden, with a tarpaulin roof keeping the sun off, so you’re eating outdoors but in the shade.

It’s family-run, and the people running both the restaurant and homestay are lovely. We both ordered khao soi, partly because it’s a speciality of Northern Thailand, and I’m very glad this was my first introduction to the dish. The flavours were enough to put us into silence, and the crispy noodles standing guard over the bowl were particularly good.

My husband also ordered one of the smoothies, and it’s a world away from the pre-made meal-deal smoothies I usually pick up in Tesco. This was just fresh fruit: brightly coloured, full of flavour, and tasting like someone had actually just made it.

The prices are some of the best you’ll find in Chiang Mai, too. A bowl of khao soi is around 110 THB, while other mains start at just 80 THB. The menu is mostly traditional Thai food, with dishes including green curry, pad kra pao, pad Thai and tom yum soup.

And if you’re staying at the homestay, there’s an added bonus: guests get a discount on their restaurant bill.

May Kaidee

May Kaidee was the first vegan restaurant I ever went to in Thailand, in their Bangkok branch. Naturally, I was delighted to find out that not only do they have a Chiang Mai branch, they also have a cooking school.

May Kaidee is one of the best known names in vegan Thai food – the company has been operating for nearly 40 years, starting out as a street food cart in Bangkok, and with restaurants in Chiang Mai, Bangkok, and New York today.

The food here is recognisably Thai, not a Westernised version, and its cooking classes teach visitors how to make traditional Thai dishes entirely from plant-based ingredients.

I particularly love their green curry, and my husband and I actually took their cooking class while we were in Chiang Mai. I came back not only with great memories of the food, but an arsenal of recipes that I immediately put to use.

Prices in the restaurant are very reasonable. We spent about £15 for a meal for two, including a shared starter, and drinks.

Final Thoughts

After spending time in Chiang Mai, I can see why it’s lauded as a destination for plant based travellers. The vegan food in Chiang Mai isn’t just plentiful, it’s diverse too.

You might spend one evening eating Khao Soi in a family restaurant in a residential area, and the next having BLTs at brunch in a cafe that looks like it could double as a yoga studio.

It’s also a city where being vegan doesn’t feel like something you have to constantly explain or work around. There are enough vegan and vegetarian restaurants that you can choose somewhere because you actually fancy eating there, rather than because it’s the only place nearby that won’t feed you a bowl of plain rice.

Outside of these restaurants or other strictly vegan places, it’s also common to find vegan options: the coffee shops have alternative milk options, regular restaurants will understand what “vegan” means. Thailand, as a whole, is an excellent destination for vegan travellers, but the vegan food in Chiang Mai just takes it to a new level.

As vegan travellers, it can get exhausting having to constantly pin places in advance or plan around protein, but in Chiang Mai, all of that melts away. And maybe that’s the biggest compliment I could give Chiang Mai: I wasn’t thinking about what I could eat, but rather what I wanted to eat.

If you’re vegan and heading to Thailand, Chiang Mai absolutely deserves a place on your itinerary. Bring your appetite.