CLOSED: La Vegetariana - Centro

Apesar da boa localização, é um Péssimo restaurante para veganos.
Diversos pratos oferecidos no buffet contém leite, e as atendentes não se mostraram atenciosas para nos informar o que poderíamos comer.

Not sure they understand what a vegetarian and/or even restaurant means. The food was far from tastefull, no spices. The price was ok, but they had problems with the scales to weight the food, so they took the food from our plate and transfered to a plastic plate. They hold the food until you get on the line and pay. Than they take it for you at your table - by the time it arrives it is already cold. Ask for a vegan desert and they offer you gelatin. Extremely disappointing. Montevideo has better places.

The Centro location prepares its own separate menu from the Pocitos location, and we were glad about that. We found a good variety of food choices and kept fresh even on this very slow Good Friday. A good variety of greens, toppings, veggies, and main dishes with healthy preparation. We enjoyed our meal and would recommend this Centro location, half block from the fountain of locks on 18 de Julio... But not inexpensive as noted, about $15us a head with a drink.

They had some options for vegans (the hot food) and of course you got salad, a bit boring I might say...Sadly it's one of the very few places to eat out as a vegetarian in Montevideo.

The atmosphere is ...well there is no atmosphere at all, it's just a buffet place, like any other. The prices are OK..500 Uruguayan pesos for two and all you can eat + desserts (which most have milk and eggs).

I do not recommend it, but if you can't find anything else then give it a try :)

I had to try myself. So it is run by an old lady who sells two tickets for 510 peso$ ~19eur. One for 8,50eur. Really expensive. And there is no seasoning. You can only add salt pepper oil. Which does not help much if you need onions or fine tomato taste. But there is a dessert included! Have fun checking this out!

We were lucky to find this place one day while downtown in Montevideo. I returned to it again several days later since I knew where it was by then. This is a basic vegetarian/vegan all-you-can-eat buffet restaurant. Their quiche was excellent both visits. They also had a squash dish that was a real stand out favorite. There were basic salad items, good vegetables, and a selection of entrees to choose from. There is a steady crowd of people during the lunch hour though it never got packed. I thought it was a very good value for the dollar and the food was very good as well.

This was the last of the many buffet style vegetarian restaurants we tried during the 3 weeks trip to South America. And it was probably the worst. The food is totally bland. They do not even use any salt. The place is spacious and centrally located. But they do not speak English, and they use eggs in many dishes. This location is only open for lunch. They have another location that is open in the evenings. Vegetarian in Montevideo is a problem. So, you may be stuck with this restaurant. Good luck.

All you can eat is perfect for those who can eat everything, but the fixed price is kind of a bummer for those who eat very little all day. It was pretty good.

If you are a strict vegetarian or vegan, I'd take a look at the Spanish language sites (particularly haztevegetariano.com), which more than suggests the cooks don't know or don't care about dietary issues dear to veggies. Many an entry suggests the cooks use gelatin, chicken broth, and the like when flavoring dishes. My own experience suggests that's very likely. It's a shame, but folks in South American have a long way to travel in the world of healthy victuals.

This is probably the only restaurant in town where vegans can have an almost decent meal. Altough the cook's never heard of spices. You'll have to season your own food. We got more decent vegan food from an oriental delicatessen, called Bambu on Calle San Jose (not far from this restaurant).

Good selection of food, some interesting dishes at the buffet; but how long was it out? A lot of it was cold (when supposed to be hot), and left me tepid about the overall experience. This was the case during both visits to this restaurant during my trip to Montevideo.

This joint has an all vegetarian buffet with soups, fried foods, a salad bar and dessert bar. The main bar is mostly fried food. Most interesting was the "rice burger", which was glutenous rice fried in a bar-shaped patty. For the vegetarians they have quiches and some other eggy dishes. If you're not familiar with Uruguayan food (as I'm not), it's hard to tell what's vegan. What I could tell, for vegans they have the rice burger, fried breads, boiled veggies, soups, and the salad bar (with lentils!). The lunch special is 300 pesos for 2 people, which is about US$13. Expect to add a lot of salt, as the food is quite bland.

This was the second La Vegetariana we tried, and we ended up going back almost every day. It's an excellent value for all-you-can-eat, and they accept credit cards.

They had a large salad bar in addition to their hot buffet, with interesting leafy greens and most other fixings that you would want. One mistake I made was that I thought that the brown liquid in a bottle next to the oil in the salad dressing section was vinegar, but it was soy sauce.

The hot food is plain and filling, but don't expect much in the way of seasoning. There was always one chafing dish full of boiled root vegetables, and usually another vegan hot vegetable dish (leeks with lentils is one memorable one). Many of the more interesting dishes contain egg, so vegans have less to choose from, but there's still plenty there for a healthy, satisfying vegan meal. One specialty they make is Milanesa (a breaded "veal" (seitan) cutlet), but this is made with egg. You can ask the chef to make you a special portion of Milanesa without egg in the breading, and they usually do it for no charge. I liked the Milanesas with their tomato sauce, or just with salt.

They also had very good noquis (gnocchi) in red sauce at this location. In Uruguay it's traditional to eat noquis at the end of the month.

They also had excellent fresh-squeezed orange juice, which you could order by the glass or by the jug (the little jugs served 2 people).

This La Vegetariana is very centrally located and is convenient to many hotels.

The only thing I didn't like about this restaurant were the bathrooms: the toilets did not have seats, and were pretty scary in other ways too.