Vegan in Chiang Rai

If you are a vegan visiting Chaing Rai, there’s actually more than you might expect on offer here. Whilst Chiang Rai might not have anything like the scene that nearby Chiang Mai does, there’s been quite an improvement over the couple of years. It’s a fairly quiet city but there is enough to get it’s fair share of tourism. So over the last few years in particular, more restaurants in Chiang Rai have begun to cater towards vegan travellers.

Chiang Rai probably has around five of your regular Thai style ‘vegan’ jey shops. These are pretty standard and don’t really differ much from each other. Our favourite is probably Oasis Vegetarian which is located near the bus station. It’s a clean and modern place, has quite a lot of options and has dishes to order from as well as pre-cooked. They also have a few healthier options rather than the usual fried dishes such as somtam. It’s a cute place. You can find plenty more of these on HappyCow but this one is the best for us.

Our next favourite is Connect Cafe. This is a non-vegetarian cafe catering to western tourists. It is open until 8 so you can get dinner here. They have a nice range of Thai and western food to order from. They have an entire section in the menu of vegetarian dishes most of which are vegan by default. Dishes are decent sized, tasty and not loaded with oil. Some of our favourite dishes are mango with sticky rice and coconut ice-cream, vegetables with cashew nuts and gyoazas. There are lots more dishes to choose from. They also have smoothies, beer and coffees with soy milk. Wi-Fi works well and there is outside and inside seating.

Right near the clock tower you will find a place called Yoddoi Coffee and Tea. Make sure you get the right one, as there seem to be two with the same name but you want the smaller one that looks more like a tea shop. Although it’s not completely veggie they actually advertise that they have vegan burgers and even list the bread ingredients. Our favourite dish here is the falafel burger with hummus and with nice fat chips on the side. You can also get smoothies and tea and coffee. It’s actually within the tea shop so you can also find a huge selection of interesting local teas and coffees here. It’s a really cute and cosy place. The clock tower is also quite pretty at night. On the hour (possibly every hour, definitely at 9PM) it plays a song and flashes different colours and it’s actually quite a nice thing to see.

Full Moon Wellness Resort opened up in the last year or so and we’re big fans of this cafe. We love how the whole place is completely open air and it just has the outside breeze blowing right the way through all the time. There is comfortable seating as well and the Wi-Fi works well. Although there are limited savoury options (just a couple of things) we really like the breakfast fruity options. They do fantastic smoothie bowls with granola which we believe you’d have to go as far as Chiang Mai for if you wanted anything else like that around here. The bowls are good and have interesting recipes. They also do avocado toast and vegan nice-cream as well as coffees with plant milk and even vegan cakes. Almost everything here is vegan apart from literally one or two savoury items.

Saving the best to last is our absolute favourite, the fully vegetarian and vegan cafe Kunda. This is a wonderful western owned restaurant that originated in Koh Lanta, where I have also visited. I was very excited when they also moved up here as their food really is quite unique to Thailand. The dishes they offer, which are mostly all vegan, are some of the most delicious I’ve ever tasted and it’s so nice to have some food not only tasty but also healthy with an abundance of rich and wild colours on your plate. Pure goodness and no crap put in it. We are really pleased that Chiang Rai has such an awesome place in this city, it’ll certainly tempt us to coming here more often. You can read my full review of Kunda here.

We hope that you enjoy your trip as a vegan in Chiang Rai! Of course you’ll no doubt be seeing the famous white temple and we’d also recommend going to Choui Fong tea and coffee plantation which was one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen, and has even been voted as one of the top coffee shops in Thailand for it’s amazing scenery. It’s a short drive outside of Chiang Rai by car.

Are there any great places with vegan food in Chiang Rai that I haven’t listed here? Please let us know!

Other vegan blogs on Chiang Rai: My Travel Scrapbook.

Read reviews of all of Chiang Rai’s vegan-friendly restaurants on HappyCow.