Vegetarian restaurants in Key West

The Cafe - best vegetarian restaurant in Key West

We've been eating vegetarian in Key West's restaurants for years as my partner is a vegetarian (of the no meat, no fish and does not like mushroom variety). So here is our (and his) subjective view of the best vegetarian food to be had in Key West - both in exclusive veggie places and also in mainstream restaurants that I make him visit so I can eat steak and lobster. I keep this updated after every visit - this was last updated November 2014.

Overall / general commentary

Key West is pretty reasonable for vegetarians in Key West. Not brilliant but pretty good for a town of only 25,000 permanent residents.

It would be nice if the mainstream restaurants had more veggie, more variety and actually changed their veggie options once a year.

Key West's best vegetarian restaurant: The Cafe, A Mostly Vegetarian place

Excellent, very friendly, long established and so now gets very busy. Highly rated on TripAdvisor and by us.

Our favorites: gyoza, edemame, veggie burger, stur fry special.

Here is a full post on our experiences with lots of pictures and the menu.

Key West's veggie deli and supermarket - Help Yourself! on Fleming Street

Great options for lunch. And a store now with logs of vegan, organic and veggie if you want to cook your own.

The best of the rest
These are non vegetarian restaurants, but with veggie options. Note in most cases there is only 1 veggie option. 

Non vegetarian, a small veggie selection which is GOOD

• New: 2cents restaurant, Appelrouth Lane. Well done, 2 cent. Veggie creativity. Roasted cauliflower hummus is excellent (lots of garlic). And a few other options. This is a great, welcome addition to the veggie roster of restaurants in Key West and loads for the meat eaters too.
• Updated: 915 Duval Street. For many years they had a boring mushroom option - boring. Good to see (November 2014) they have upgraded this and now offer ricotta gnocchi with squash filling.

Blue Heaven  - try the Key Lime Pie martini, or two, while you wait for your table)
Sarabeth's (David's an institution and a wonderful host)
La Trattoria (don't forget the martini bar)
Antonia's
Old Town Mexican - great place for lunch - veggieladas are the best on the menu for vegetarians - very fresh food - several options
Mangia Mangia - pasta, pasta, pasta; but well done
Hard Rock Cafe - great Duval Street people watching the day from the outdoor terrace seating - Veggie burger is the only option for veggies
Cafe Sole - they say they have a veggie menu -never tried the place

Non vegetarian, a small veggie selection which is REALLY AVERAGE AND BORING FOR VEGGIES

[COMING SOON]

Good Key West restaurants which can't be bothered to offer ANY vegetarian options AT ALL - what a SHAME!

• Michaels
• A & B Lobster house - what about veggie scampi or fish - it's delicious

BEST KEY WEST VEGGIE BY DISH

Best vegetarian starters

Asparagus and cheese souffle at Antonia's (rich)
Black bean soup at Blue Heaven (not exactly light though!)
Edamame at the Veggie Cafe
Bruschetta at La Trattoria (lots of olive oil, maybe too much)
Funghi Fatciti at La Trattoria (lots of cream, maybe too much)

Winner: Antonia's

Best vegetarian main/entree

Veggie stir fry at Blue Heaven
Spaghetti Norma at La Trattoria (well cooked, but a bit bog standard)
Penne Arrabiata at La Trattoria (well cooked, but a bit bog standard)
Any burger, or falafel, or salad at the Veggie Cafe (but not for a big night out)
Green Chile Pepper Macaroni and 3 Cheeses at Sarabeth's

Winner: Sarabeth's

RIP veggie

Historically great veggie dishes that inexplicably were taken off the menu at the following venues and so the that great dish was consigned only to the memory:

Vegetarian Curry at 915 was great. Creative and different, especially for KW. Then he took if off the menu because it wasn't popular enough. Replaced with mushroom risotto as the only veggie main (mushroom risotto = the veggie equivalent of boiled new potatoes = death through boredom). When he brings the curry back, and he will!, we'll be back! (Note: I've just re-checked the menu. Since we were last there they have added a veggie crepe, which looks very interesting - I will review on TripAdvisor when we are next in).
Paulie's Purple Pasta (with beetroot and roast veggies and cheese) at Mango's - before the place was sold and went downhill rapidly
Also Green Republic was exclusively veggie on Fleming and was open for a few years but is now long gone. We like this place a lot, I think it was a franchise chain.

Put your money on the table: If you only went somewhere once for veggie in Key West, where would it be?

For the place: charisma and something truly different: Blue Heaven

For food: pure veggie experience with great service and max vegetarian choice: The Veggie Cafe

Key West and Flagler's Folly

I'm reading Last Train to Paradise by Les Standiford at the moment - the story of Henry Flagler - the man that gave birth to modern Miami - and his money that made the 'railroad that crossed an ocean' possible.

It's a brilliant book - I picked it up when I was visiting the Flagler Museum in Palm Beach last year (http://bit.ly/cwIi0p) the wonderful guide said it was the best book ever written on the subject.

A reminder of the facts:

1892 Flagler visited the seaside hamlet of Palm Beach: 'I have found a veritable paradise'

1894 one of worst freezes in Florida history (2010?). St.A frozen. He gets sent an orange blossom (=not frozen) from Miami (Fort Dallas as it was then known). He's sold; 3 days later Flagler's in Miami for the first time.

1898 'I would have been a rich man if it hadn't been for Florida.'

1899 Flagler 69. Proposed to 3rd wife (Mary Lily). Moves legal residence from NY to Florida (good move).

1905 The Keys, according to write of the day 'worthless, chaotic fragments of coral reef, limestone and mangrove swamps... and have been aptly called the sweepings and debris which the Creator hurled out to sea after he had finished shaping Florida.' Flagler visits Key West and tells everyone that he intends to bring the railroad to them. How? 'It's perfectly simple. All you have to do is to build one concrete arch, and then another, and pretty soon you'll find yourself in Key West.'

1908 Ever the marketer, Flagler demands a picture, from out at sea, of his new Long Key Viaduct; his signature and favourite bridge.













October 17 1906, October 11 1908, October 17 1910 Despite hurricanes on all these three dates, lives are lost but hard work goes on.

1912 Flagler arrives in Key West, to a reception of 10,000 people, on his own iron. 'We have been trying to anchor Key West to the mainland...and anchor it we have done.'

1935..... next post.

Real estate

Back here in the UK, Florida got a big mention last weekend in the biggest Sunday newspaper over here, the Sunday Times. Now is the time to buy apparently, for Brits in Florida.

In a feature article, 'the market in Florida has collapsed, but the worst is over.' Key West specifically was not mentioned but South Beach and Sarasota got a shout out as desirable places to buy right now.

What needs to change? Knife, fork, spoon, Key West...

I was thinking just now that in our fast paced world where everything seems to change, actually, some things stay stubbornly the same.

The trend over the last 30 years has been to converge, to minimalise, to update, to modernise, to evolve, to jump to a new technology and a new way of doing things.

But then I thought of the knife, fork and spoon. They have not changed. They have not converged or minimalised. To me there seems real opportunity here. Three becomes two?

Key West's a bit like that too. Not changing.

Is that a good thing that they've not changed? have they not changed because no one can be bothered, or because it's too much trouble to change, or because they are the best solution to the problem (of how to eat, in this case). What about just giving one of them up? And which one? The fork maybe.

I think Key West hasn't changed because it's too much trouble for the kind of folks that live there. That's not too much of a bad thing.

If we did, what bit of Key West would we give up to 'minimalize' the island? Well, unlike other towns, we've only got 1 Starbucks so we can't get rid of one of those. But do we really need Faustos? Do we need both (all!) the trolley tours? Lose one of the piers (so we lose some of the cruise ships)? Do we need all the veggie restaurants or art galleries? Sloppy Joe's is just like the Hog's Breath Saloon; Antonias is like La Trattoria - do we need both?