Where to eat vegan in Rhodes town

I’ve included Vegan in the title of this blog post because the things I eat are vegan, but just as a small reminder at the start; vegan food is just food. It’s not some kind of alien space fodder that other humans can’t eat, so this is still ‘food in Rhodes Town’, it just so happens that more of the people with dietary requirements can eat it. If you’re not vegan or veggie, I would still recommend the places I’m going to talk about!

Food is a big part of travel for me, so making the switch to a plant based diet this year has made eating in other countries quite a lot more tricky. Greece though, I have to say, is one of the better places I’ve visited for it – while there was a lot of meat and fish on the menu boards outside restaurants, there were also loads of vegetables. When I was searching for places to eat vegan in Rhodes I did find some mentions online but couldn’t find any blog posts dedicated to it, so I decided to write one myself with the places I enjoyed:

To Marouli

This is the place that will show up on any Google or TripAdvisor search for vegan eats in Rodos, and with good reason; it’s entirely veggie, most of the menu is vegan too, and it is all delicious. It’s perfectly situated in the Old Town on a quiet street and the staff are lovely…I don’t usually like to go back to restaurants when I’m away, but we went 3 times. The burger is fab, as is the risotto, but what we enjoyed most was choosing a selection of their starters and salads and sharing them all. There is little point in me raving about one dish since they seem to change their hand-written-and-photocopied menu frequently, but: the chocolate mousse, guys. THE CHOCOLATE MOUSSE. I think I will dream about it in years to come. The prices are good – around €10 for a main, give or take, less for a wrap or salad – and you can get a glass of prosecco and 5 or 6 little food tasters like a chunk of focaccia, a couple of olives, a falafel, etc etc, for €5. Basically, go there, vegan or not.

Dromos Street Food

This is a great lunch spot near Rodos bus station serving incredible sandwiches; there’s just one vegan option (pictured above), but it’s so incredibly good that Dromos still deserves a top spot. The sandwich in question includes sautéed mushrooms, vegan cheese, sundried tomato pesto and pickled carrots…and when I say sandwich, I mean serious sandwich. It’s messy, it’s difficult to eat and it’s bloody delicious. They also sell juices from RuBisCo – a juice bar in the Old Town which you should probably check out too.

George and Maria’s Art of Falafel

This lovely little place sold the best falafel wraps and became a lunchtime favourite of ours, although it is open for dinner in the evenings too. I can’t testify for the other vegan options – and there are some – as even though we went twice, I had to have the falafel wrap again because it had been so good the first time. The falafel is crisp, the salad is fresh, the serving is generous, and it all comes together beautifully. They also make their own Harissa and sell jars of it – buy one, it’s fantastic.

Niohori

When we first walked in and looked at the menu here, I thought this was going to end up included in the few other restaurants I’ll mention at the bottom, because there didn’t seem to be much choice and the reaction to me asking about what was vegan didn’t seem promising. However, when the option that was recommended – something with aubergines that I cant remember the name of although I’m aware that’s not helpful – arrived, I was quite blown away. It was delicious, the best aubergine dish I’ve ever had. The aubergine was almost melting, and the flavour was deep and rich. I had a basket of bread with it, dunked it in, and left very pleased that we’d given it a go. Obviously a place like this is especially good if you are travelling with meat eaters, as Rob’s (definitely not vegan) meal got a big thumbs up too.

Nimmos Traditional Restaurant

This place is situated on the very edge of the Old Town away from the main streets so I’m not sure how much passing trade it gets, and its also the kind of place with those weird faded photos of some of the meals on boards outside. I don’t think we would have ever gone here except that I saw the word ‘Vegan’ on one of said boards (minus faded photos) and decided to give it a go. I had Briam, a mix of vegetables roasted in the oven, and it was great – their pitta bread was the best we had too, warm and fresh. What makes me consider this place especially worthy of a mention was their attitude to the request for vegan food; the waiter just had such a lovely, easy reaction like ‘of course!’ and pointed out my options before making his own recommendations. It’s super cheap, so perfect for a lunch while exploring the Old Town or a casual dinner.

Those were probably my favourite places we ate in Rodos based on my experience eating plant based foods. These are the other places which I had nice meals at, I don’t know if I would recommend them for vegan food specifically but they can cater for plant-based diets;

• Kathopoulis Family Restaurant; not many options and not a great response to the word ‘Vegan’ from the (otherwise very nice) waiter, but their fries and fava were seriously delicious
• Fainos: far from the best food we had but they have such a massive menu that there is more choice here than many other places
• Tamam: just one choice of vegan main and it’s pretty average, but they give you free wine while you queue outside, free bread, free dessert and a voucher for a free glass of prosecco per person at a bar owned by the same person

You’ll pretty much always be fine eating vegan in Rodos, but there’s definitely a danger of ending up with a lot of chips, a lot of bread, some form of vegetable paste (fava, melizanosalata, houmous) and not much else. And I mean it is a holiday after all so bring on the carbs, but variety is nice too isn’t it – that’s what the five eateries I’ve mentioned allowed.

If anyone who is both vegan and going to Rhodes reads this, I hope it was helpful. And for anyone who reads my blog regularly, I hope this wasn’t too boring. We all like photos of food right?! I’ll be doing a more general Rhodes travel post soon!

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