BYBLOS
I think this one was a Happy Cow find. After arriving and dumping my bags at my accomodation it was around 8pm I just looked for the closest place and walked in that direction. Didn’t look at what it was called or anything about it except for location. If they were fullI was just going to do the same thing again till I found something.
They were pretty full but managed to find a seat for me inside. The staff were very friendly and the waiter serving me also spoke English. Turns out Byblos is a Lebanese restaurant and have plenty of vegan choices on the menu. I was having a read through when the waiter came over and made a recommendation to me letting me know his top vegan pick. It happened to be the exact thing I was looking at so I went with that.
It was a chickpea pan pie type thing. The reason the photo here is of it already started and stuff isn’t because I forgot to take a shot earlier. It’s that the waiter cut and peeled back the top of the pie stew thing to serve it up. I assume this is to help avoiding customers potentially burning themselves on any steam? There was plenty of bread served along with this and it was very tasty. It had flavour and was a nice warm hearty meal which was appreciated after my travel day. I think I had only eaten a packet of Pringles at the airport earlier.
VEGAN KO
Vegan KO was appearing in all the searches across all the apps so I headed there for lunch when I was close by during a wander about. Again I had no idea what to expect. It’s a bit fun just going, ‘Yep, that’s close. Let’s see what they have.’
Turns out this is a hole in the wall take away order style place. They have a bunch of burgers and that sort of thing on offer. A lot of it uses the mock meat as a primary meal base so instead I opted for a chickpea salad and obviously hot chips too. Once I spotted this was a take away place I decided I would take my meal and go sit in the Zrinjevac Park.
The meal was alright. I would probably try to check out other places in Zagreb before returning but if I don’t find decent hot chips anywhere I will go back for them. It was nice to eat a salad. Especially after Rome where everything was very bread/carbs heavy. Sure chickpeas are carbs, but it’s a different carb feeling. Also you might have noticed… I like chickpeas.
JOYFUL KITCHEN
I had spotted the name of this place pop up on the apps but it was when I was walking around with Karlo on my Zagreb tour he pointed it out to me. He also runs a vegan food in Zagreb tour and this is one of the stops he includes. It was also located just next to the alley path I was going to walk up to check out the cannon firing after eating.
You order at the counter here and then they give you a buzzer thing to come collect your food when it’s ready. They make a range of fresh juices and I decided to try their immuno boosting juice, a ginger, mint, and lime combo. That was pretty tasty. I also ordered the Joyful Energy Wrap and I chose it pretty much exclusively for the tofu. I hadn’t eaten much of it lately and I wanted to add some protein in my diet. It was a decent wrap.
ZRNO BIO BISTRO
I was introduced to ZRNO Bio Bistro by Karlo from Bespoke Croatia. He runs a vegan food tour in Zagreb and this is one of the stops. The place was nice and had both indoor and outside seating. I opted for the indoors with some AC seating as it was quite a warm day and I had been out in it for a while.
I ordered their breaded tofu with salad and fermented salad. I was kind of interested to see what breaded tofu was as this was something I had never had before. It was amazing! So good. the salads were great too. Such nice fresh produce. They grow a lot of their own goods on their local farm that delivers daily. It’s appreciated and noticed. Fresh ingredients are the best!
I hadn’t eaten since 5am and it was about 1:30pm now so I ordered desert too! I had a look at the choices and then asked the waiter what he would recommend. The Chocolate Temptation cake made his list and it’s what I was eyeing off so I had that. It was good! About halfway through I was starting to hit a wall but I persevered. Finished the cake along with an espresso. I would definitely return here. There are more things to try. The staff were super lovely, helpful, and the food was amazing!
NAMASTE ZAGREB
I had walked past Namaste a few times when I returned to Zagreb for the day when I was picking up the car. It was near where I was staying. So when I came by and was hungry I just took a quick peek at the menu and they had heaps of vegan options. They had a table available, it was cash only service, that all worked for me so I sat and ordered.
It was good. Plenty of flavour with a good amount of spice. I didn’t need it any hotter than it was. I didn’t order any extra bread or starters or anything. Just went for a rice and veg curry dish. It was a decent amount of food. The lunch I had at ZRNO’s earlier had filled me for a bit so it was about 9pmish when I stopped by here.
The service was lovely, really friendly staff. If I wanted Indian in Zagreb again I would probs go back.
KATA Brunch Bar (Gluten Free)
I came across Kata as I was looking for somewhere to grab a bite for breakfast on my way to the bus station. It turns out this place opened in 2021 and is Zagreb’s first 100% gluten free brunch bar. So it’s gluten free and has vegan options. I went for a bit of a veggie sandwich type thing. It got heated up a bit which was nice.
The bread was pretty good, so any gluten free peeps out there looking for somewhere to go. Here is a good choice. The filling was all nice and fresh and it was a very good breakfast. Nice to have a solid proper meal before a day of doing things.
