Vegetarian and Vegan Options in Vieques!

What options are there for vegetarians and vegans looking for plant based food in Vieques, PR? Turns out, quite a lot! Check it out!

The Veggie Sando from Cocina Verde!

Vieques, Puerto Rico is a wild, remote, off-the-beaten-path vacation destination like no other, with hundreds of beaches, thousands of “wild” horses, the brightest bioluminescent bay in the world, and a truly surprising number of fantastic, fresh, creative restaurants. That’s especially impressive when you consider that Vieques has no big grocery stores, no traffic lights, no food chains or department stores, and an at-times shocking lack of fresh produce.

And yet, the restaurants here are absolutely thriving, creative, and fresh. (They must have great suppliers!)

Incredible ambiance at El Plaza, Vieques

But what about plant based options in Vieques?

You wouldn’t expect a tiny, remote Caribbean island like Vieques to have dozens of great restaurants, let alone absolutely fantastic vegetarian and vegan food, but here we are. While there are no exclusively vegetarian or vegan restaurants in Vieques, plant based food in Vieques is CRAZY plentiful, fresh, and often remarkably creative. From sweet plantains stuffed with veggies and cheese (canoas), inventive vegan sushi rolls, hearts of palm ceviche, BBQ jackfruit, coconut rice bowls, and tofu fish filet sandwiches, to comforting classics like eggplant parmesan, veggie burgers, veggie pizzas, veggie tacos, loaded veggie nachos, fried cheese curds, and more, you physically can’t try it all unless your vacation lasts a month.

Tofu skewers at Tin Box, Vieques

And yet, Googling vegetarian restaurants in Vieques, vegan food in Vieques, or plant based options in Vieques usually turns up lackluster or out of date results. Vieques isn’t a very Google-able island at times, and sponsored ads tend to clog up the feed. Yelp gets it wrong, and most articles are written by people who only visited for 5 days. So where do you get accurate info?? That’s the point of this little article: to create something genuinely helpful for travelers searching for the best vegetarian and vegan dining options in Vieques, written by someone who eats plant based and has actually lived here for almost a decade.

The "Tofrito" roll at Tin Box, Vieques

So who’s writing this? My name is Sara, and I co-own a local sail and snorkel adventure tour company here on Vieques: Vieques Sailing Charters! Today, I’ve put together a totally informal, absolutely subjective, non-all-inclusive, probably incomplete guide to vegetarian food in Vieques, because we, the owners of Vieques Sailing Charters along with our little family, are dirty, dirty vegetarians ourselves, and the guide below is EXACTLY what we would want if we were traveling somewhere new and looking for the best of the best.

(And yes, if you’re looking for an all-inclusive sail and snorkel tour in Vieques with vegetarian or vegan food, we ABSOLUTELY have you covered… but this post is about the restaurants!)

The Coconut Rice Bowl at Mango Taphouse and Gastropub

So without further ado, here’s the link to my terribly formatted, but seriously extensive, guide to vegetarian restaurants in Vieques in the form of a Google Doc so that I can quickly change it as new information becomes available. It's quick and dirty, but there's a whopping 28 restaurants and counting already on the list, so get ready to enjoy some AMAZING veggie food in Vieques!

I’ll do my best to keep it updated, but no promises. I’m pretty busy running our crazy little tours and raising our crazy little family! Fair winds and following seas! But first, a few more food pics! Enjoy!

Hearts of Palm Ceviche at El Plaza

Eggplant Parmesan at Taverna

Happy eating! And don't forget to check out the quick and dirty Vieques veggie food guide here!