The Best European Capital Cities for Vegan Dining

The number of people choosing plant-based meals, egg replacements, vegan milk or opting to take up a fully vegan diet has risen drastically in recent years across the globe. Food consumers are now far more aware of how much meat and animal products they are consuming. Google searches for “vegan food near me” experienced a more than 5000% increase in 2021.

Today the public is more conscious about health issues related to consuming too much meat, animal welfare matters are discussed frequently across social media, and there are lots of restaurants and supermarkets that keep up with the trend by offering a broad range of vegan products. These are all examples of the recent rise in the popularity of veganism, and how the service industry has begun to adapt to customers’ plant-based culinary wishes.

At CIA Landlord Insurance, we wanted to gain insight into how attitudes towards veganism have changed across Europe. Just how easy is it to get great vegan food out and about in the capital cities of the old continent in 2022?

With this in mind, we collected relevant data on the 12 most populated capital cities in Europe to help us determine the best capital European cities for vegan dining. Carry on reading to discover more!

Warsaw is the best capital city in Europe for vegan dining

Our research unveiled Warsaw to be the best European capital city for vegan dining. This result may surprise some of you since traditional Polish cuisine isn’t known as particularly vegan-friendly. However, you’ll find the Śródmieście Południowe central district with its iconic art nouveau buildings is now buzzing with an impressive array of vegan restaurants and cafés.

Warsaw also has 108 supermarkets with an extensive range of vegan products for customers to choose from. So, getting your hands on vegan products and ingredients should be no hassle if you’re a vegan going on holiday to Warsaw that has chosen to stay in self-catered accommodation.

Paris came in 2nd place in our overall rankings, not surprising for a city that prides itself on its world-famous gastronomic heritage. So, whether you’re eating out, rustling up something plant-based at home, or looking for a quick bite to eat, Paris has all bases covered when it comes to catering for vegans.

Vienna came in 3rd place. Our data showed that Vienna has a whopping 93 different vegan burger joints! When visiting Vienna today, you will even come across vegan-friendly ice cream and Schnitzel! The cosmopolitan Austrian capital has adapted and rapidly become a vegan-friendly hotspot.

According to our findings, the two least vegan-friendly places out of the top 12 most populated European capital cities are Minsk in Belarus and Kiev in Ukraine respectively. We found that Minsk has only 8 vegan-friendly burger outlets in the city for you to grab a plant-based bun.

Paris has the most vegan cafés and restaurants per capita

Paris is renowned for its splendorous food outlets. The 16th arrondissement area and the pedestrianised street Rue Cler in the 7th arrondissement are especially well known for their excellent restaurants. Out of all the capital cities we looked at, beau Paris came out on top in 1st place for having the most vegan cafés and restaurants per capita.

Kiev and Warsaw came in 2nd and 3rd place for the most vegan cafés and restaurants per capita. This follows a general trend whereby the larger cities in Eastern Europe are making a concerted effort to be more accommodating to vegans.

Stockholm is the European capital city with the most supermarkets with extensive vegan options per capita

You may not always feel like eating out in a restaurant. Having enough supermarkets with a decent range of vegan options is important for tourists and residents alike.

Out of the European capital cities that we looked at, we found Stockholm to have the most supermarkets offering a significant range of vegan-friendly options per capita. Looking at the results from the research we carried out on vegan dining in European capitals, rest assured you can always rely on being able to find top-notch vegan food options in supermarkets in Stockholm!

The decision to take up a vegan diet has become more commonplace amongst the Swedish population in recent years. In fact, veganism has a long history in the country which can be traced back to the gröna vågen (green wave) in the 1970s.

Budapest and Vienna came in 2nd and 3rd place in our study into vegan-friendly supermarkets per capita. So, you will find no shortage of vegan options in supermarkets if you should decide to visit the Hungarian or Austrian capital anytime soon.

Stockholm has the most vegan burger joints per capita!

You can get amazingly tasty vegan burgers these days, made of wholesome meat-free ingredients, such as mushrooms, beans, legumes, tofu, seitan, and vegan cheese. We discovered that Stockholm (once again coming out on top) is the European capital with the most vegan burger outlets per capita, with 99 in total!

Nevertheless, the Swedish capital ended up finishing 7th in the overall rankings due to it having a relatively low number of vegan cafés and restaurants compared to its 1,679,050-strong population.

The city with the 2nd most vegan burger outlets per capita is Warsaw, and the 3rd Vienna. So, Stockholm isn’t the only European city where you can get your hands on yummy plant-based vegan burgers in restaurants and takeaways. Warsaw and Vienna are also examples of great European cities to find delectable 100% vegan burgers.

You should now understand a great deal more about the best European capital cities for vegan dining, a real help if you or somebody you’ll be travelling with follows a vegan diet. Are you thinking about actually packing up and moving abroad to a European capital city? If so, this piece should serve as a useful guide for you to look at and reference.

Methodology

We carried out research into the best capital cities in Europe for vegan dining. This involved gathering together data and statistics for the top 12 most populated capital cities in Europe on 3 different metrics. Our chosen metrics to focus on were vegan cafés and restaurants, vegan-friendly supermarkets, and vegan burger outlets, all on a per capita basis according to their population.

We used Google maps and searched the terms ‘vegan grocery store’ and ‘vegan burger’ nearby to help us get the numbers of vegan-friendly supermarkets and vegan burger outlets for each city. We then divided these totals by the cities’ individual populations so we could get per capita readings.

We utilised happycow.net/searchmap to get the numbers of vegan cafés and restaurants in each city. We then divided these numbers by the city’s population to help us also obtain per capita readings for this metric.

Below you will find examples of the sources we look at to help us write this piece and get relevant statistics for our data.

Sources
https://www.happycow.net/searchmap/
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/
https://worldpopulationreview.com/continents/europe/capitals