Vegan Food Across the Village

A recipe can carry a home across an ocean. In the Village, those journeys find their way into storefront kitchens and onto a griddle at the edge of Washington Square Park. Sitting down to eat gives us another way to get to know the people who make these streets their own.

Village Preservation has previously explored vegan food and the local businesses serving it. Here, we take a closer look at three spots, one a food cart near Washington Square, and restaurants in Greenwich Village and the East Village. Their menus move from South Indian dosas to Sichuan noodles and French cooking, with plenty of reasons to bring an appetite.

NY Dosas Food Cart, near Washington Square

Washington Square South near Sullivan Street

On the southern edge of Washington Square Park, NY Dosas has built a lasting neighborhood presence on wheels. Thiru Kumar, born in Jaffna, Sri Lanka, started the cart in 2001. Known to regulars as the Dosa Man, he serves vegan South Indian food from a small workspace beside one of the Village’s great gathering places.

The menu begins with rice-and-lentil crepes. The masala dosa holds a potato filling, while the Special Pondicherry adds vegetables. Lunch comes with sambar, a lentil and vegetable soup, and coconut chutney. For something smaller, there are samosas or vegan drumsticks made from soy protein on sugarcane sticks.

The setting deserves some of your afternoon. This is the park where folk musicians fought for the right to sing in April 1961, and where public life has long unfolded within earshot of strangers. Take your lunch to a bench and give yourself permission to linger. A meal can be a small reason to spend more time in a place worth knowing.

Start with: The masala dosa or Special Pondicherry, with sambar and coconut chutney.

Spicy Moon in the East Village

328 East 6th Street, between First and Second Avenues

At Spicy Moon’s East Village location, the menu turns toward Sichuan cooking. Village Preservation included the then-new vegan restaurant in its February 2019 roundup of local Chinese restaurants, drawing attention to its chili wontons and dan dan noodles. Both remain on the posted menu today.

The current East Village menu describes dan dan noodles with chili oil, sweet soy sauce, and sesame paste. Mapo tofu brings soft tofu together with leeks and Sichuan peppercorns in a chili gravy. Vegetable wontons hold glass noodles, wood ear mushrooms, and spiced tofu beneath their wrappers.

There is room to build a meal around vegetables, too. String beans come with garlic, dried peppers, and fermented vegetables. The dry pot combines vegetables and mushrooms with tofu skin and fried tofu in a spicy sauce. The choices give a table plenty to pass around, with sesame, garlic, and chili carrying the conversation from plate to plate.

For an evening with friends, order a few dishes to share. Let dinner be an occasion to sit together for a while before returning to the street.

Start with: Dan dan noodles and vegetable wontons in chili oil, adding mapo tofu for a fuller meal.

Délice and Sarrasin in Greenwich Village

178 West Houston Street, with the entrance on Bedford Street

The family-run Délice & Sarrasin brings a different set of memories to the table. Previously located at 20 Christopher Street, the restaurant opened at its West Houston location in June 2023. Chef Yvette Caron’s kitchen reworks French dishes with an entirely vegan menu.

Oyster mushrooms take the place of snails in the escargots, served with parsley and garlic butter made without dairy. The vegan boeuf bourguignon comes with red wine, carrots, onions, and potatoes. The menu also includes savory buckwheat galettes, sweet crepes, and dark chocolate mousse.

Here, familiar dishes become an invitation to reconsider what their ingredients can be. A French dinner can still make room for a slow-cooked main course and something sweet at the end, with plants doing the work throughout.

Afterward, turn onto Bedford Street, which was mapped before 1799. The address offers a way to join dinner to a walk through the neighborhood’s older streets. Leave a little time for both.

Start with: Mushroom escargots and vegan boeuf bourguignon, with dark chocolate mousse to finish.

Supporting these businesses begins with an ordinary act: buying a meal. Over time, those visits can become part of how we belong to a neighborhood. We learn an address, bring someone along, and return to a place that has begun to mean something to us.

Come hungry. Give yourself time to walk. There is still a great deal of the Village to meet across a table.

Check each business’s website for current menus and hours. NY Dosas asks visitors to check its social media for opening hours.