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• Not a bad option in Taksim area

Vegan Istanbul is about a 7 or 8 minute walk down Sıraselviler caddesi, then turning right just at Firuzağa Camii. The upper floor has a small selection of vegan goods, while the cafe/restaurant is downstairs, with tables and (I think) a very small outside patio area at the back. You can get a plate for 12 TL and select three options from about eight or nine. These are typically things like veggie meatballs, cooked aubergine dishes, "mücver" style vegetable burgers and savoury things like that (you can also get more than three for a bit extra). Unfortunately they do indeed sometimes seem to have to use a microwave to heat up these dishes, which does affect the texture and flavour, I suppose it's a difficult problem for small places when they don't have enough customer turnover to keep cooking hot dishes. They do have some other options apart from the mixed plate selection. At one time, we had Turkish sigara böreği style fried spring rolls filled with either vegan cheese or leek and vegetables. They were able to freshly fry these, and they were excellent, especially the leek version (why not have both vegan cheese and veg. in one). Other options are vegan burgers and Turkish vegan-style lahmahcun. The burgers were honestly not great, however the lahmahcun was quite good and seemed pretty much as close as you could get to the non-veg version while remaining meat free. They also have a reasonable selection of vegan desserts for a low price, including vegan version of baklava which is otherwise very difficult to find in Istanbul. I tried some of the mastic-flavoured chocolate cake which was quite good. Prices are quite reasonable. Fresh orange juice was excellent. They can also make vegan version of Turkish drinks such as ayran.