Lao Wai

It's a small place. Make sure you book a table. By phone only.
This is Chinese food at its best. The fact that the food is vegan is just extra delight!
They serve a large variety of tea and also wine and beer.
Maybe a little bit understaffed since sometimes you have to wait to get attention.
If you ask they sometimes have frozen lunch boxes to bring home for a very reasonable prize!

Lao Wai is nowadays a classic vegan Stockholm restaurant and still keeps the high standard. Minimalistic interior design, and very small space - so make sure to book a table in advance. This is one out of a few Stockholm restaurants that serves Chinese food as I remember the taste from my visits to China. The high-quality food is the basis for my five stars. The service is reasonable but I sometimes feel the waitor is a bit too stressed and one sometimes has to wait a few minutes extra for orders.

Vegan chinese with vegan substitutes for shrimp, meat etc. Hard to get a table, fair prices. For lovers of chinese food primarily.

We turned up just before 5:30pm on a Thursday night and we were lucky to get a table (and had to be prepared to be gone before 7pm). We saw several other groups get turned away. So book ahead!

The prices weren't cheap and the serving sizes quite small compared to what we're used to (in Bulgaria) but man, it was good! We had 3 dishes (a starter and 2 mains) and they were all delicious. Before moving to Bulgaria I lived in Asia for a decade (5 of those years in China) and this is the best Asian food I've had in a very long time.

Highly recommend giving this place a try but do make a booking to avoid disappointment.

good food if you love spicy food as I am, but unfortunately it's too small and very noisy :-/

They do offer a set lunch on weekdays between 11 am. and 2 pm. for 100 kronors. I didn't have to wait for long, the portion was generous and the food was tasty. It's a friendly place and I would go there again. For Swedish condition the price was OK. Food seemed to be quite authentic (Chinese).
They could invest in nicer decoration though.

Cozy little spot in Stockholm, often fullbooked.
The food is supertasty and delicious, a fantastic place to eat expecially if you like spicy food, but even if you do not.
Pretty big portions that are worth the price, the place place to get friends to impress them!

One of my absolute favourite restaurants in Sthlm. Everything is supertasty and delicious!

I was looking forward to some Asian food which was began in Stockholm however I was disappointed.
There is just one dish they serve at lunchtime and it was lacking flavor.
For the simplicity of the dish and they fact the kitchen only need to prepare one dish the 100Kr cost I thought was too high.
A nice atmosphere and friendly staff.

Admittedly a long time since my last visit, but few things seem to have changed when one walks by. The food is really, really good - but also really, really expensive (not overpriced).

This restaurant is relatively small (don't forget to book your table) but offers a good vegan Chinese food, with plenty of tastes. The menu is not huge but every dish looks good! I tried the sliced mushrooms as a starter (exquisite) and the spicy Sichuan tofu dish (that was really spicy!). The portion of the dish is big and you won't be hungry anymore after a three-course-meal. I finish my dinner with a pistachio ice cream, made with their homemade soy milk. It was really so good! They also have a cappuccino very creamy. I would recommend the place for sure, even if I found it highly expensive. There is quality, yes, but nothing that deserves such high prices. Nevertheless, it is a must go for a vegan in Stockholm.

A gem of a restaurant! The food was simply delicious,appetizing, well prepared and seasoned with fresh herbs. Much thought went into making this restaurant an excellent choice for vegan food in Stockholm.

I had heard about how great the Chinese food at Lao Wei is, so I tried it.

I have eaten Asian food all over the world, and perhaps this is really good food for Stockholm or Sweden, but I didn't find the food at this restaurant to be anything special. The prices were certainly higher than I normally pay for rather ordinary Chinese food.

The food was good, but based on the reviews, I figured the food would be superb. The presentation was typical of just about any Chinese restaurant I have eaten at.

I ordered a monkey mushroom dish and some mixed vegetables. I enjoyed my meal, but wouldn't make a special trip to eat here again. This was the only Asian restaurant I have tried in Sweden, so perhaps this is better than the others.

This restaurant is very crowded and you are lucky if you can get a table quickly like we did.

Everything is vegan here, it gets really busy from 6.30pm so book if you're hoping to visit at this time.

Not cheap and a bit off the tourist track but only a 15 minute walk from the palace.

Really tasty authentic Chinese food.

Only vegan which is great and during lunchtime, you don't even have to order cause there is only one meal to get so you just sit down where there is space and wait for the food to be done. Its really expensive and there aren't much spaceand tends to get really loud. Still pretty good.

The flavours in the food were the best I have had from any Chinese restaurant. The place is quite small and always busy (I was there just after 5.30pm and I was lucky to get a table), but the advantage is that they focus on making really high quality food in small batches that is always fresh. The place is exceptionally clean and modern, and the kitchens looked just as clean as the dining area. First class service. It wasn't cheap - 340SEK for a beer, starter and main course, but it was definitely worth it. The reason it's not cheap is because they clearly use high quality organic ingredients, which I appreciate.

This is really one of the better restaurants in Stockholm, but not one you go to that often since the prices.. :) The food is great BUT a bit to spicey for it´s own good. Many dishes on the menu kinda numbs the mouth so you can´t taste the other dishes anymore.. And i love spicey food, but here it kinda kills all other tastes.

The prices are very expensive, count 340 sek for a meal, a tea and an ice-cream. The interior is little and always full, it is better to book !!!
The staff is very nice, the food is good, organic, without MSG and they have my favorite tea : Oolong from Taïwan :)
I love pandan leaf cakes so I tryed this flavour on ice-cream but it´s not so good with the cocnut milk. Choose an other parfum ;)
Updated from previous review on Wednesday September 03, 2014

I went to Lao Wai again a week ago and I can confirm that it is still the only and best vegan restaurant in Stockholm and probably in Sweden as well! It is also the best vegetarian restaurant in Stockholm and probably the only vegetarian restaurant in Sweden which actually prepare the food AFTER you order it. All the others are more like lunch restaurants, makes you feel like you are back in school canteen. And this is shocking with us Swedes. We go to restaurants, vegetarian or ordinary non vegetarian restaurants, and we vegetarians as well as meat eaters pay a high price for food which was prepared en masse in the morning, not even expecting to receive freshly prepared food. Canteen food is the standard for most restaurants in Stockholm.

This makes me sad. We have basically only Lao Wai, which serves great food. However, in other European cities you have plenty of great restaurants like Lao Wai. In Sweden - only one for probably 15 years by now!

Lao Wai should not be considered to be the best restaurant, this should be normal standard for vegetarian food at least! The demands are really low in Stockholm.

OLD review

I have been here many times during the last years and every time I come back home to Stockholm I try to eat here. It is the best restaurants for vegetarian and vegans. Might be considered to be expansive but it is a real restaurant, it is worth every crown! Most of the other vegetarian restaurants in Stockholm only have buffets or small lunch menu with food more like in a canteen.

You must go here, it is worth it. Even when I was a poor student I would make sure I could go here some times every year.

Most other veg restaurants will make you disappointed after a visit to this one.
Updated from previous review on Sunday July 22, 2012

The food here is a bit expensive for me, but it is seriously worth every krona. It's well composed vegan food, with vegetables to fresh you can taste it. As a sober person, I enjoy their beverages. They have excellent beverages to go with the dinner, and their tea is lovely (the coffee too, I've heard). Don't miss this place!

First, the restaurant has been renovated, so now it looks clean & stylish . When you go in, you smells a very appetizing smell from the kitchen.
All dishes based on Tofu.
I ordered the veg dish ( comes with rice )
with out tofu and the taste was great .
My girlfriend ordered a tofu dish and she loved it .

The price was a bit high , but we enjoyed .
The rest open till 22:00 but the kitchen works until 21:00 .

Everywhere you read open till 10 pm, but when you get there suddenly the kitchen is, of course, closed since 9 pm.

All vegan restaurant close to the centralstation in Stockholm. They make their own soy-based ice cream in different flavors which is really too good. They make their own soymilk aswell so the cappuchino is like a delicious desert. A lot of dishes with tofu in different sauces and rice. Great food, though quite expensive.

However difficult it might be to get a table here when out in the last minute, Lao Wai is still the best restaurant in town. The food is all vegan and all delicious!

Tasty Chinese vegan food. Small and crowded around lunchtime; reservation is a good idea.

A favourite since many years, borh at luch and dinner.
Has a running 2-weeks menu on lunches. Check homepage.
Since it is small and popular, be prpared to wait a little at lunchtime and best book table in advance for dinner.
Our favouritedishes: Ma Po Tofu and Gong Bao (evening).

Have been many times there, everytime it feels like I am having the best meal of my life.

This place has some of the best vegan chinese food I have ever eaten. It is not particularly cheap, though reasonable by the standards of Stockholm, but I totally recommend it. The menu is extensive and all the food we ate was delicious, the 'Nutty Delight' a chocolate and almond pannacotta, was a dream, every vegan should eat this once in their life. The portions are a good size, plenty of free water was offered and there are a great choice of teas.
The restaurant is quite small and you really need to book ahead, as I was travelling from the UK I was able to book my reservation by email beforehand but usually you should telephone. At 5.30am on a Wednesday evening this place was already busy so it's probably not a good idea to just turn up.

I took a 40 minute walk to this restaurant based on reviews I read here at Happy Cow. And I was not disappointed at all. The food was amazing.

You should know before you visit that it is a VERY small restaurant with a tiny dining room. Reservations are a good idea. Otherwise, you may be standing outside in the cold.

Love it.

Lao Wai is absolutely the best veggie place I have tried so far. Me and my carnivorous bf had fake chicken protein with veggies and peanuts in a spicy sweet sauce and bean curd with mince in chilli bean sauce and they were the best meals of our lives. I didn't manage to try the nutty delight but had some lovely cardamon ice-creams. I wish I had this restaurant in my town as I would be there at least once a week.

What can we say, get Asian vego food, nice selection of teas, yummy icecream. As well as the great food, the service was good and food arrived hot and fresh. As others have commented, the place is small so you either need to go early or book ahead.

We recently visited this restaurant whilst in Stockholm after reading wonderful reviews about it.

Never having really eaten Chinese food before, I wasn't sure what to expect, but it was absolutely beautiful. Everything on the menu (which they could luckily supply in English!) is vegan and they had a lovely balance between 'fake meat' based dishes, tofu and vegetable based dishes. All choices offered us unknown ingredients and a wide variety of sauces.

The desserts were also wonderful-we tried the 'nutty delight' (almond and chocolate pannacotta with a sea buckthorn sauce), pistachio, cardamon and bergamot ice cream and also the panam leaf and coconut ice cream (my favourite!)

As other people have said, it was fairly expensive, though they provided us with tap water straight away which was kept topped up throughout, and rice was included with the meal and again topped up as required, so the price is as seen on the menu without racking up too much! The quality and portion size of the food (we shared 3 meals between 4 people to much satisfaction!) definitely made it worth it!

We ate at Lao Wai last night - and it was a real treat for us. We loved being able to choose anything from the menu - and really enjoyed the food - we chose 3 different main courses betwee 4 of us and shared them, as the menu suggests.

The sweets were great too - we tried 2 of the ice-creams (we found the flavour combinations really worked well) and the chocolate panacetta.

It cost more than we'd usually pay for a meal (main 170 - 200 SEK; sweets 40 - 65 SEK) - but we thought it was worth it for a treat. We were glad we booked - several people were turned away as it was full. There were also people dropping in for takeaways.

Recommended to try if you can get to Stockholm!

This place served us the best Chinese food I have ever had, Everything on the menu was/is vegan! Beware the weird ice cream only for the adventurous! Good service, but you must make reservations or high risk of no space.

Today we tried Lao Wai....loved it! As the previous reviews mention, it is a very small place. We arrived at about 11:30 and found a small table in the corner. We had the "Dagens" lunch for 100 SEK each. Today's selection was #22 on the evening menu but I can't remember all of the ingredients. But the flavors were fresh, spicy and absolutely delicious...down to the (almost) last grain of rice! We spend our summers in Stockholm and as fairly new vegans we find great joy in discovering restaurants that understand our eating values. I know we will visit Lao Wai often.

Only been here once, but it's was an good experience. Good dishes, and fresh place all around. Bit expensive, but worth it.

Great range of food for Vegans - starters were both excellent. Mains were good but desserts were best of all - try the rice ice cream and the vegan cheescake was delicious too!

Busy so you may need to book - great central location - nice decor.

We had to book a table upfront because the restaurant is very small and there's a lot of demand. The staff was very friendly and the menu left a lot of choice. The food was really delicious and everything vegan or even gluten free. I only did not like the vegan prawns (weird texturee and no taste).

I went to this restaurant once but it's quiet small.

I'd heard great things about Lao Wai and so booked a table to ensure I wasn't disappointed. I'm really glad we booked - this place is always busy!

A small restaurant with an open kitchen and very friendly staff - they have an English menu if you ask.

The food was fairly expensive (175 SEK for a main course) but wholly worth it in my opinion. Portions are a very good size and we both left feeling full and happy!

There was a good selection of tofu and other fake meats on the menu and what stood out for me was how flavoursome everything was - you could really taste the ginger, chilli and garlic.

A great little place that really lived up to its reputation!

Small place, quite far but well connected to the center by bus and tunnelbana. One of the BEST VEGETARIAN RESTAURANTS in Europe. Not really expensive.

The tastiest vegan food in Stockholm comes at a price... but it is definately worth it for special occasions - main courses average about 160kr. Also nice to finish off a meal with a vegan dessert that isn't just fruit! :)

I ate around 7 different places in Stockholm in order to compare the different vegan selections and meals that were offered.

Lao Wai really stood out in comparison. So much that I had to go back twice despite being a bit short on money. I haven't usually been fan of chinese or very hot cuisines ,but the food had such great flavour and the vegetables were of excellent quality. That it in a sense convinced me to like even super hot food. The worst is that I picked the least hot main course on the menue and it still burned my tongue!

The prices may be exceptionally high for swedish standards. However that didn't bother me as its still cheaper than my own norwegian standards. Even if you pay the double for food, you really got some excellent crafted meals. The place was very well designed, small but very cosy. It was fun being able to see the family working on the food through the door to the kitchen.

Next time I will try to reach their lunch menues, unfortunately I only ate in the evening there. I can't wait to come back as I have yet to taste better prepared food

I have to agree that this is the best vegan restaurant in Stockholm (even though there aren't that many.. :P) It's a very small, chinese restaurant, and if you want dessert you should come early (otherwise they may be sold out). All the food is wooked, and the dish is served in the middle of the table and you get a separate rice bowl, so everybody shares the dishes and takes some from them to their own rice bowl.
The food is great, the place is nice and clean, and the staff friendly. Only con is the size of the restaurant, it gets a bit crowded. However I recommend it to everybody!

It's great to find a chinese vegetarian restaurant! They have a very good choice of meals, which are quite traditional chinese meals but without meat and a lot of mushrooms. The wine card is also excellent.
The interior design is modern and not like a traditional chinese restaurant. It's quite small and you should go there early.

Me and my boyfriend tried this place after reading the reviews. But we were both very disapointed. The food was very oily and the environment was narrow and noisy. Sorry but we cannot agree with the other reviews.

Most Caucasians who spent some time in China are probably familiar with the term "laowai" meaning a Caucasian foreigner and will have their own view on wether this is a derogatory term or not - whatever your view is, at Lao Wai in Stockholm you will certainly not feel as a foreigner!

I spent a very nice evening in this restaurant with a friend and we were both impressed by the high quality of the food - fresh, flavoursome and authentic. The wine menu was ok, but a white wine without a wine cooler is actually not so cool... However the selection of tea was exquisite!

The interior of the restaurant is plain and simple and thus makes it easier to focus on the excellent food :-)

I truly appreciated the attentive service and Herbie Hancock as background music was actually more than I could have ask for.

To put it in a nutshell if I would have to choose only one restaurant in Stockholm it would be Lao Wai.

My partner and I went here for dinner a few weeks back because the reviews were so good. We looked up the menu online and we had decided what we wanted before we went. Unfortunately neither of the starters nor main courses we had chosen were available that evening. We picked some other dishes and we were happy with them. The ingredients were all fresh and well prepared. We could see into the kitchen and it looked very professional and clean. We both enjoyed our meals very much. When it came to dessert we were informed that they were all sold out also! So, it was a bit disappointing even though we really enjoyed what we had. I'll probably go back another time because I'd still like to try the items that weren't available that night. If you are looking for a romantic setting I don't think this is the right place. It's very bright and the tables are very close together. Our table for two wasn't comfortable. We hadn't enough leg room so I had to sit awkwardly with my legs out to the side and neither of us are tall or large people. I can only assume that the other tables are better. I'd give the food 4 stars and the setting only 2 stars.

Lao Wai is simply the best vegan restaurant in Stockholm, especially for dinner. Fantastic food and service. During lunch there is only one course (changing daily). Make sure you try the desserts (but beware that they're very often sold out) and soy cappuccino.

The restaurant is rather small so a reservation is recommended. If you go without a reservation and dont't get a table, the cafe Organic Green and the restaurant Malaysia are both extremely close, and the restaurant Kokyo is within 5-10 minutes walking distance.

All sorts of delicious dishes on offer at this TW restaurant. Loved the small and comfortable dining area. Attentive service always makes this place a great experience. A bit spendy indeed but worth the price when you get the urge for some great, fresh faux meat TW cuisine. My favorite vegetarian restaurant in Sweden, not all that hard to find but it is outside of the general area a tourist might visit in Stockholm. Be warned that because it is a small family run business they might be closed or on holiday from time to time.

This was the best vegetarian/vegan eatery that I found in Stockholm. The service was old good, and the prices were steeper than other places in town, but otherwise everything was excellent, with delicious and extremely healthy food. Also, it is much cleaner than most of the other veggie places in town.