NYCGuide
The Best Vegan Pizza In NYC
photo credit: NOAH DEVEREAUX
A mere look at the number of vegan pizza options available throughout the five boroughs makes one thing clear: there has never been a better time to eat vegan food in New York. But with so many great places to choose from, it can be tough selecting the very best of them. Well, that’s where we come in.
We scoured the city for the top vegan pizza spots and came up with this list by focusing on the range of options at each place, the creativity of each menu, and, ya know, how good the pies were. Without further ado, here are the very best spots to head to in NYC for a great vegan pizza or slice.
The Spots
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If you’re going to choose a single place from this guide to visit, it should be this vegan pizzeria in the East Village. Dishing out plant-based personal pies from a custom-built wood-burning over, Double Zero’s pizzas both look and taste delicious. Start with a classic margherita before trying the artichoke pie and spicy arrabiata. The former is made with cashew cream, diced tomatoes, spinach, and caramelized onion while the latter has tomato, marinara sauce, cauliflower, shiitake bacon, and basil.
This tiny vegan spot in Greenpoint sells pizza by the slice, which is pretty uncommon when it comes to plant-based pies. The ’80s design makes it feel like a bit of a throwback, but since it’s a pretty small shop, we suggest taking your Maui Wowie pie (sweet Thai chili sauce, pickled long hots, sweet peppers, caramelized onions, pineapple, and jalapeño sausage with vegan cheese) across the street to McCarren Park. Every pizza here is made with four vegan cheeses that mostly taste like the real thing, but it’s the grandma pie that we always want to order again before we leave. The Sicilian-style pie reeks of garlic oil (in a good way) and is topped with two types of mozzarella (Numu and Violife), basil, and sauce stripes.
There are a few things you should know about Vinnie’s in Williamsburg: it’s most definitely a very casual spot - as you’ll notice given the Ninja Turtles-adorned bench outside - and isn’t entirely vegan, but there’s a good number of plant-based options to choose from. They’re all made with soy-free Teese cheese (which is made with coconut oil and tapioca starch), but you can also go with Daiya (made from arrowroot and cassava) instead for an extra $3. Creativity is the name of the game here, and we suggest the black bean taco pie (spicy vegan chicken or ground beef, pico de gallo, mozzarella, cheddar, hot sauce, and black beans) for something a little less traditional. Or for something more familiar, we’re partial to the Parma Initiative, made with baked breaded eggplant, marinara sauce, cheddar, and mozzarella.
Did you know that Paulie Gee’s actually serves eight different vegan pies? Well, that’s what we’re here for. The Vegan Shmoogula is, by far, the very best one on the menu. It’s made with tomato sauce, baby arugula, olive oil, post-oven nutritional yeast, and mild Aleppo chili oil, which provides just the right amount of tingling kick. If you’re looking for a quicker option, or just want to grab slices to go, then walk three blocks to Paulie Gee’s Slice Shop where the menu also includes four types of vegan slices/pies.
Located around the corner from Washington Square Park, Artistic Pizza serves quite an extensive menu of plant-based pies in addition to its regular ones. Even the most carnivorous person in your life will find something (vegan) to enjoy here, including the vegan sausage sensation, the vegan buffalo chicken, and the vegan pepperoni pie. If you’re not into fake meat, the veggie galore is where it’s at - onions, spinach, mushrooms, and peppers sit on a bed of perfectly melted vegan cheese. And if you just can’t make up your mind, ask the always-helpful staff to give you a recommendation. Whatever you order, make sure to take it over to the park where you can eat while listening to a random person play the sax in the background.
Although there is only one as-labeled vegan pizza on the menu here (a marinara with grilled zucchini, roasted red peppers, kalamata olives, and basil), the cauliflower crust pizza made with plain cauliflower cheese is what we go for when we need a change from the former (after all, it totally counts as a vegan option as well.) The super casual spot in East Williamsburg is known for the chewy and pretty dense crusts that make up the pies, which is the ideal base for the crunchy, fresh vegetables cooked on top.
Tufino Pizzeria might not be the only restaurant in Queens with vegan pizza, but it is our favorite. The family-owned Italian restaurant serves Neapolitan pies from a wood-fired oven that was hand-built in Naples using volcanic lava ash from Mt. Vesuvius. All pies are baked in that very impressive-sounding oven using homemade dough that’s leavened over three days. The menu isn’t strictly plant-based, but any pizza can be made vegan or gluten-free for an additional $3. In those cases, the cheese used is also homemade, which is pretty awesome. Our favorite? The quattro formaggi (fior di latte, ricotta, gorgonzola, and grana padano) and the spicy burrata, which features dried chile, cherry tomatoes, garlic, burrata, and prosciutto (or, I guess, a version of it?). The four-item vegan menu is also interesting with both eggplant and meatball parmigiana.
If it’s a quick-fix you’re looking for, go to Two Boots, which has nine different locations all over town, and - between all the psychedelic and colorful design - always reminds me of my childhood bedroom, in the best way possible. There are nine different vegan pizzas on the menu, including the Vegan Mr. Pink (chicken, plum tomatoes, garlic, and Daiya cheese), the Vegan Tony Clifton (shiitake mushrooms, Vidalia onions, sweet red pepper pesto, and Daiya), and the Earth Mother (fresh spinach, roasted garlic, peppers, mushrooms, red onion, and marinara). A fun fact about the latter pie: it’s named after the one and only Bette Midler, whose NY Restoration Project (unrelated to the pizza spot) helped save the community gardens of the Lower East Side.
There are two exciting things about this Upper West Side vegetarian pizzeria that also happens to be kosher: there are four types of crust available (whole wheat, corn, gluten-free, and spelt), and all the desserts are plant-based as well. Although not everything on the menu is vegan, there are still plenty of good options to choose from, including the zen pie with green tea-herbed miso tofu, green tea basil pesto, shiitake mushrooms, caramelized onions, sun-dried tomatoes, and roasted garlic on a green tea herbed spelt crust. The gluten-free fresca with grilled eggplant and zucchini, chopped tomatoes, sauteed onions, vegan cheese, and tomato sauce is also a great one to try.
Although we love expansive menus with loads of choices, there’s something to be said about the pleasure of not making decisions. Which is why we love this Lower East Side spot that “only” has two vegan options on the menu, an original slice and a Sicilian one. That simplicity, though, just means we get to focus on how good the slices are here. Scarr’s really relies on the already phenomenal combination of crust, cheese, sauce, and basil, without the use of unnecessary ingredients that will leave you wondering if 12 toppings were 10 too many. This place makes vegan pizza at its most elemental and really is the physical manifestation of saying “less is more.”
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With its exposed brick and “Get Lost In The Sauce” neon signs, Village Square Pizza is a very chill place to eat a slice of pizza in the West Village (there’s also a second location on Avenue A). The menu, which includes pizza by the slice/square or whole pies, is pretty straightforward, but we’d like to focus on one of our favorite pizza-like things here: the vegan bruschetta. It’s topped with freshly chopped tomatoes and red onions drenched in extra virgin olive oil and fresh basil while sitting on a golden garlic crust. But if you must have pizza, which is also very good, you can select between a few plant-based options: the vegan square is topped with roasted peppers and onions, and the eggplant square features fried eggplant, marinara sauce, hand-crushed tomatoes, chopped garlic, and fresh basil.
This might be the most upscale place on the guide, and we should disclose that it’s not actually a pizzeria, but a gluten-free restaurant that also happens to serve creative pizzas (including vegan ones). All the pies here - whether personal or shared ones - are made on gluten-free vegan crusts and those with real cheese can be made with plant-based options instead (for an extra $1.50 per order). You can also order the vegan version of the Caprino pie, made with eggplant, roasted pepper, goat cheese, mozzarella, tomato sauce, and topped with fresh arugula, or spinach artichoke with tomato sauce, goat cheese, and mozzarella. The rest of the menu is also vegan-friendly: from the meatballs served with marinara sauce to the veggie burger and the entire dessert slate.
If you’re a fan of thin crusts, then Williamsburg Pizza might just become your new favorite. They have three locations around the city, all serving remarkably filling thin-crust slices and pies. And at all three shops, you’ve got two plant-based options: the vegan (made with Violife mozzarella, and covered in marinated artichokes, basil, roasted red peppers, red onions, spinach, garlic, and tomato sauce) and the vegan pepperoni (same plant-based cheese, topped with pepperoni, tomato sauce, and basil). The Upper East Side location also serves a vegan calabrese, made with plant-based mozzarella, Yves soy pepperoni, red onions, basil, and tomato sauce. Williamsburg Pizza’s owner also opened a spin-off in Crown Heights that goes by the name Brooklyn Pizza Crew, but has the same menu and look as the other locations.
