An Expert’s Guide to the Best Vegetarian and Vegan Restaurants in Salzburg

Just a brief stroll from Mirabelle Palace and Gardens lies one of Salzburg’s most delightful vegan cafés and bistros, GustaV. “GustaV is my absolute favourite,” Remonato explains. “It offers delicious and healthy breakfasts, good coffee and a daily lunch special. It also makes the best vegan sandwiches.” With a sandwich costing around €9 (£7.60), GustaV is also reasonably priced by Salzburg standards. Established by Denise Hagopyan, the café-bistro oozes style – with colourfully restored furniture, hand-painted floral wall designs and a mishmash of curious decorations, from a Dalí melting clock to a collection of large playing cards reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland. At the end of your visit, you can leave your praise for GustaV in its charming visitor book.

The Green Garden is the perfect vegetarian and vegan restaurant for an evening of fine dining. Professing to be “Salzburg’s greenest kitchen”, the restaurant uses fresh regional produce from environmentally conscientious suppliers. “The Green Garden is an elegant restaurant,” Remonato says. “It has very good salads, some classics like a falafel wrap and Flammkuchen [German-style pizza], and even some intriguing risotto and tortellini.” For burger lovers, the Beyond Meat Burger with delicious beetroot sauce is not to be missed. The Green Garden also specialises in vegan ice cream, coffee and wine, and has a shop attached to the restaurant.

The Heart of Joy is a vegan and vegetarian restaurant with a harmonious atmosphere inspired by the Indian spiritual teachings of Sri Chinmoy. With friendly staff and a mainly organic menu, the restaurant strives to create an enriching culinary experience. “I enjoy dining at The Heart of Joy,” Remonato says. “It uses fresh organic produce from the region.” The menu is generous and reasonably priced, with over a dozen breakfast items to choose from, including hearty organic porridges and fresh juices. Delicious vegetable quiches, curries and wraps, meanwhile, populate the mains menu. The restaurant is situated on Franz-Josef-Straße, just up from Salzburg Congress.

My Indigo – with its “Eat and Smile” motto – is a restaurant franchise with a largely vegetarian and vegan menu. With numerous outlets in Salzburg, My Indigo offers quality food for people on the go. “It has a good range of curries served with a choice of rice, quinoa or noodles,” says Remonato. Its salad bar is also very popular. The cuisine is international – with Thai curries, Indian dals and even an African peanut pot, all at a budget price. The decor is vibrant and stylish, with exposed red-brick walls, dark timbers and even a glittering disco ball.

With such a kooky restaurant name, Spicy Spices diners would be right to expect a memorable culinary experience. “What you get here, you get nowhere!” is the curious motto of Spicy Spices owner Suresh Kumar Syal. His restaurant is colourful and intimate, with Indian decor and a fragrant smell of spices on entering. The organic vegetarian menu includes samosas, salads, dals, curries and Indian breads (chapattis and naans). With lunchtime meals at around €8-€10 (£6.80-£8.50), Spicy Spices is very reasonably priced. It also sells a range of home-made organic and gluten-free products, including chutneys, pastes and chai. Situated on Wolf-Dietrich-Straße, the restaurant is only a few doors down from GustaV.

The Taj Mahal is a popular traditional Indian restaurant in Salzburg, with a wide variety of vegetarian and vegan options on the menu. “For lovers of Indian cuisine, the Taj Mahal is classic dining at its best,” says Remonato. From palak paneer (Indian cheese with creamed spinach) to aloo gobi (cauliflower and potatoes in onion and tomato sauce), every savoury dish is prepared in authentic Indian style, using only natural ingredients. The restaurant is very popular, so make sure to book ahead.

Organic Pizza Salzburg has a variety of vegetarian and vegan pizzas on the menu. With its reputation for quality organic pizza baked in a wood-fired oven, the restaurant has won the hearts of many Salzburgers, including Denise Hagopyan from GusaV, who kindly shared her insider tips with Culture Trip. The vegan pizzas are her favourite, with toppings including shiitake mushrooms, aubergines and sun-dried tomatoes. Situated on Franz-Josef-Straße, the restaurant is popular and ideally located for many of the city’s hotels.

A snug restaurant and takeaway for burger lovers, BioBurgerMeister enjoys an enviable reputation on the Salzburg restaurant scene. Remonato is a fan. “It’s a very cool place. I love the Bio ‘Green’ Burger with avocado.” With six vegan and vegetarian burgers to choose from (and many more meat variations), there’s something for every dietary requirement. Using only organic ingredients to cook its burgers, BioBurgerMeister is the ideal place to grab a healthy bite. The restaurant is situated on Linzergaße, which has a variety of unique shops and cafés.