Go Gourmet Green With Cruelty-Free Cuisine: 19 Cleveland’s Vegan Delicacies
- November 30, 2023
New York is a great place to be a vegan – it’s home to some of the best vegan restaurants in the world. However, most vegans are familiar with the conundrum of wanting to go out to eat with family and friends and encountering the hard-line meat lovers who assume all vegan restaurants are terrible. You can fight and force them to step out of their comfort zone, but who needs that kind of effort and drama at this time of year (or, well, ever)?
A better solution is finding a restaurant with something for everyone to enjoy. It might sound as achievable as finding the Holy Grail, but nothing is impossible in this town. Enter 19 Cleveland, the home of great Mediterranean food in NYC and the perfect place for everyone to get together around the table for some delicious eats. Nobody will be left unsatisfied – and that includes the vegetarians and vegans in the mix.
Lunches for Plant-Powered Palates
Finding Mediterranean restaurants with vegan options can be difficult. There are often many ingredients, not all of which make it onto the page, and often, they aren’t familiar to the casual reader.
If you don’t know your labaneh from your burrata, understanding what to order can be overwhelming, especially if your server doesn’t seem to know what’s going on either. At 19 Cleveland, we make a point of including all the ingredients in every dish on our menu, making it easy to choose what to eat even if you don’t have any dietary restrictions. Plus, all our servers are well-versed in explaining the less common ingredients if needed.
When it comes to a vegan restaurant lunch, you’re generally looking for something light but substantial enough to power you through the afternoon. A salad fits that bill perfectly for vegetarians, specifically our Fatoush Salad. This salad evolved from the need to use up leftover pita, and it’s the perfect combination of fresh, sweet, and spicy. Our version of this classic dish includes chopped tomato, cucumber, onion, fennel, fetta, sumac, and za’atar drizzled with a lemon vinaigrette. If you wish to keep the dish vegan, let your server know, and we’ll prepare it without the cheese.
Where a meat protein might have been a go-to, falafel steps in to save the day. Both delicious in its own right and a filling part of any main course, falafel is made from ground chickpeas. It’s at its best when paired with hummus and tahini, which feature on our mouth-watering Falafel Sandwich alongside red cabbage, tomato, onion, fried eggplant, and a spicy touch of harissa.
End the Night With a Variety of Vegan Delights
As dinner time beckons, we turn to another vegan-friendly protein – mushrooms. Mediterranean cuisine embraced the humble mushroom from the very beginning, from the chanterelle to the portobello.
Whether you’re vegetarian or not, our mushroom cigars are a great way to start your dinner. Our Baharat spice mix evokes some of the flavors of the holiday season, like cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg, making this an excellent choice for a frosty winter’s night.
Falafel is as appropriate at dinner as it is at lunch. If you’re in the mood for something you can really sink your teeth into, look no further than our restaurant’s vegan Spicy Falafel Burger. Served with a pile of hand-cut fries or a side salad, the burger features our mouth-watering falafel burger patty layered on a crisp brioche bun with avocado, Boston lettuce, and a zingy jalapeño mayo.
Be The Main Event at 19 Cleveland
Being a vegan or vegetarian and going out for dinner can often make you feel like all of the normalization of these diet choices never happened. A lot of menus don’t feature even one item that fits the bill, and for many more, the restaurant vegan options feel like it was added to check a box rather than because it’s delicious. Not so at 19 Cleveland. Mediterranean cuisine naturally embraces vegetables, so we proudly offer several vegetarian- or vegan-friendly options.
We pride ourselves on being a place where diverse people can feel at home and connect over food in the grand tradition of the Mediterranean. Reserve a table and bring the whole family along to our restaurant in NYC – for a vegan brunch, lunch, or dinner to remember.