Vegan Guide to Koh Chang

Updated February 2023

Here is our Vegan Guide to Koh Chang which is one of the largest islands in the gulf of Thailand. Easily accessible from Bangkok (6 hours via taxi and boat) and also close to the Cambodian border it is somewhere we have visited a number of times over the years. The vegan options are limited compared to some of the other Thai islands, but when one of your all time favourite Thai veggie restaurants is located there, we just know that we will return. Having once enjoyed the island life and the excellent vegan food in Koh Chang we will be heading back soon for sure.

Please understand that unethical elephant tourism is sadly alive and kicking on the island. There are elephant ‘camps’ and ‘sanctuaries’ everywhere with none of them treating the elephants with respect. For sure you will see elephants ‘bathing’ on the beach with tourists, being ridden by the same tourists, and chained to posts close to the roads to attract custom. It’s both horrible to see, and very disappointing that tourists still engage in this type of activity.

Vegetarian Restaurants in Koh Chang

Tofu Kitchen

Tofu Kitchen
Kai Bae Beach
Koh Chang

Opening Times: 9am-3pm and 5pm-9pm, closed Monday

We would highly recommend this simple restaurant just set back from the main beach road in Kai Bae. Extensive veggie menu with many clearly marked vegan options meaning that it would be easy to come here every day and still not manage to try everything. That’s exactly what we have done every time we have visited Koh Chang, dined at Tofu Kitchen more or less every day! We enjoyed dishes including a tempe and avocado sandwich, seaweed mushroom salad, gyoza, tofu satay, mushroom and tempe skewers and a selection of some of the finest Thai curries – green, pineapple, massaman and Penang each and every one delicious. In our opinion, this is the best vegan option in Koh Chang, and it’s also one of our favourite veggie vegan restaurants in the whole of Thailand. Outstanding.

Little Wing Kitchen

Little Wing Kitchen
Lonely Beach
Koh Chang

Opening Times: 11am-3pm and 7pm-midnight every day

Tiny restaurant with just two tables meaning you might have to wait but it’s worth it. Authentic Thai veggie food with many clearly marked vegan options. The only non vegan ingredient is egg in some of the dishes. We ordered green curry and red curry both with veg and tofu, also ginger tofu and all dishes come served with local wild rice. The green curry was outstanding with plenty of spice and plenty of flavour, the other dishes were very good also but the green curry stole the show. Great that there’s now a veggie / vegan option in Lonely Beach and we wish them all the best of luck. Very good indeed.

Fig Cafe

Fig Cafe
Kai Bae Beach
Koh Chang

Opening Times: 8am-4pm every day, closed Wednesday

Fig Cafe is a modern cafe in a garden setting, also just off the main beach road in Kai Bae. Friendly staff and a cool place to hangout with great coffees and juices, we loved our oat milk cappuccino and cold pressed juices in their peaceful garden for sure! On a previous visit we ordered the panini with tomato, pesto and vegan cheese to make sure we got our vegan cheese ‘fix’ whilst on the island, but sadly this is no longer on the small menu. In fact, there was no vegan food on the menu, but we would still recommend a visit for the relaxed vibes, friendly owners and tasty coffee.

Everflow

Everflow
Soi Kai Mook
Koh Chang

Opening Times: Temporarily Closed

The team at Everflow closed during covid and have yet to re-open, our below review is from our previous visit, hopefully as tourist numbers increase on Koh Chang they will find a way to re-open as even though we never managed to eat there, we’ve heard good things…

Took a little while to find this small veggie cafe just off the main road between Kai Bae and White Sands. If you’re coming from Kai Bae it’s the left turn just before Big C supermarket. Kind of strange experience, we arrived and entered but there were no staff (or customers for that matter). The music was on and the cafe was blatantly open but we were the only ones there. After what seemed like forever but was probably around 10 minutes we left. We put on our helmets and as we started our moto someone turned up. She was very friendly and apologetic but the moment had passed. We weren’t super hungry and were visiting purely to add to our guide so decided to return another time. That just never happened so other than tell you where it is and the interior is clean and tidy we can offer no more. Check it out if you’re in the area and let us know what you think!

Vegan Friendly Restaurants in Koh Chang

Poke Bowl

Poke Bowl
Kai Bae Beach
Koh Chang

Opening Times: midday-4pm and 5pm-9pm, closed Wednesday

Impressive menu that has many vegan options that feature interesting ingredients such as cashew cheese, seitan and vegan pesto. It’s not a veggie or vegan restaurant as stated elsewhere, the menu also has eggs, salmon and shrimp. We ordered the Poke Burger, Seitan Burrito, Falafel Pitta and Garlic Pepper Tofu Salad to share and were impressed. We loved the falafels and also the vegan lemon mayo that was served with a couple of dishes. The seitan burrito was outstanding, great to have seitan as an option and the wrap was perfect. Could have done with a little chilli to make it perfect. Despite being full up we of course tried the vegan bounty bar and the vegan snickers bar which were both delicious, tough to choose a favourite. Friendly staff and a lovely place to enjoy the vibes and the food.

Emperor of India (now called Indian Chef)

Indian Chef
Kai Bae Beach
Koh Chang

Opening Times: 12.30pm-10.30pm every day

From what we were told, this restaurant which is now called Indian Chef, has the same owners as previously. We didn’t eat here on this visit but each time we passed it looked busy. This is the only Indian option in this part of Koh Chang, so if you’re craving a curry this is where to head.

Emperor of India is in the centre of Kai Bae and is run by a husband and wife team from Delhi. They both fully understood what was vegan as you would expect and made suggestions based on this. We had roti, samosas, channa masala and veg kofta with basmati rice. The two curries were excellent and the roti was also good, the samosas weren’t great but the quality of the curries made up for this.

Coco Mango

Coco Mango
White Sands Beach
Koh Chang

Opening Times: Temporarily Closed

Another victim of COVID, during our recent trip Coco Mango remained closed…

Coco Mango is on the main road at the South end of White Sands Beach. It’s a dairy free cafe with a good selection of vegan ice creams, desserts and smoothie bowls. There are savoury dishes too with some labelled vegan but they do sell meat which is a shame. We had a number of questions for the (friendly) staff member but with her lack of English and our lack of Thai we didn’t get very far! We loved the ice cream which contains no additives or preservatives and is made from locally grown coconuts on Koh Chang. We also enjoyed a fancy take on mango sticky rice which was very good indeed although we didn’t eat the wafers in the picture as they were not vegan. Another member of staff turned up as we were being served who spoke excellent English and informed us of this.

Khao Kwan

Opening Hours: 10am-10pm every day, opens at 5pm on Wednesday

Khao Kwan
Kai Bae
Koh Chang

We don’t usually add anywhere that we haven’t tried but the veggie menu here looked great, as did the restaurant itself. If we were staying longer we would have dined there for sure. Check out the pictures from their Facebook page of the delightful looking vegan summer rolls and dessert…