Australia
including TasmaniaEffortless city and coastal travel; supermarkets built for plant-based shopping; predictable tourist infrastructure across all major centres.
One of the stronger plant-based retail markets globally — Coles and Woolworths now stock dedicated vegan sections as standard; look for the green "Plant Based" shelf tags.
Australia holds #7 in the VTG country rankings — one of the strongest results globally, and a reflection of how thoroughly plant-based eating has embedded itself into mainstream Australian food culture. The country ranking covers the full continent including Tasmania; individual cities like Melbourne and Sydney score considerably higher when measured city-by-city, and are consistently cited among the world's most vegan-friendly cities at that level. The country figure accounts for rural and outback areas where options thin out considerably — the city experience and the country-wide experience are meaningfully different.
Supermarket coverage is exceptional. Both Coles and Woolworths carry dedicated plant-based refrigerated sections and own-brand vegan lines (Coles Plant Based, Woolworths Macro) that are clearly labelled and competitively priced. In major cities, specialty stores including About Life, The Source Bulk Foods, and Harris Farm Markets fill the premium and zero-waste gap. Always check labels carefully on packaged foods — "plant-based" branding on the front of pack does not guarantee the absence of dairy or honey, and formulations vary by flavour and product line. Never assume a product is safe without reading the full ingredients list.
What's Hiding in the Kitchen
Butter is automatically applied to toast, bread, and cooked vegetables at most Australian cafés without being mentioned on the menu. This is standard café practice, not a special addition. Australia's signature café dish — smashed avocado on sourdough — routinely arrives on buttered bread. Side vegetables such as broccolini and green beans are typically finished with butter in restaurant kitchens, as are mashed potato and most grain sides. Specify "no butter" explicitly when ordering, not just "vegan".
Honey appears routinely in products marketed as healthy, natural, or raw — the product categories that dominate Australian café and health-food culture. Bliss balls, raw slices, muesli bars, granola, and açaí bowls sold at cafés and health-food counters frequently contain honey. Some venues sweeten smoothies and herbal teas with honey as a "natural" alternative to sugar. The ingredients label is the only reliable check — "natural sweetener" on a menu description often means honey.
Chicken salt is the default seasoning used on hot chips at the vast majority of Australian fish and chip shops, pub bistros, and takeaway venues — and it contains chicken flavouring. It looks identical to regular salt and is applied automatically unless refused. Most chip shop and pub staff will not think to mention it unprompted, and it will not appear on the menu. At the same time, pub gravies are almost always meat-stock based and are poured over chips as a default at many venues. Always ask "no chicken salt, no gravy" when ordering chips in any non-dedicated-vegan setting.
Standard Worcestershire sauce contains anchovies and is used invisibly in burgers, steak marinades, pub gravies, and Caesar dressing across Australian mainstream and pub cooking. The sauce is a background flavour — it won't appear on menus, and staff may confirm a dish is "vegetarian" without checking for it. Caesar salad dressing is anchovy-based by default; ask specifically before ordering. Some vegan alternatives to Worcestershire sauce exist, but standard pub and café versions are almost never vegan.
Say This at the Café
What Actually Works
Use Coles and Woolworths as your base camp
Both chains carry extensive plant-based sections — look for the green "Plant Based" shelf tags at Woolworths and the dedicated refrigerated zone at Coles. Own-brand vegan lines are reliable and well-labelled. The Source Bulk Foods handles grains, nuts, and pantry staples in most capital cities; IGA and Foodland fill the gap in smaller towns. Stock up before any regional or outback leg.
Order smashed avo with explicit instructions
Smashed avocado on sourdough is the most reliably available café dish in Australia — but place your order precisely: "no butter on the bread, no feta, no poached egg." Most cafés accommodate this without issue. In cities and major tourist towns, oat and soy milk are standard at virtually every café; ask by name rather than hoping the barista asks. "Oat latte" is a safe default in urban venues.
Follow the urban vegan scene
Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, and Perth have dense dedicated vegan restaurant scenes — not just vegan-friendly options, but fully vegan venues. In Melbourne's inner-north (Fitzroy, Collingwood, Brunswick) and Sydney's inner-west (Newtown, Glebe), you can eat at dedicated vegan restaurants for an entire trip without repetition. HappyCow is accurate and well-maintained for Australian cities and updated regularly.
Pack supplies for any road trip leg
Outside coastal cities and tourist towns, Australian food infrastructure reverts to a pub-and-petrol-station model. Load a small cooler from a city supermarket before any regional drive. Thai and Indian restaurants — present in many country towns — are consistently the most reliable vegan meal stop in rural Australia. Health food stores appear in many regional centres and are worth checking on Google Maps before departure.
Where It Gets Harder
Australia's vegan infrastructure is heavily concentrated along the coast and in major cities — venture inland or into regional areas and the same country can feel like a different destination entirely.
Regional and outback areas
Country towns, highway rest stops, and outback roadhouses are built around a meat pie and petrol station model. Pub bistro menus default to steak, chicken parma, and fish and chips. Options exist but require active searching — Thai and Indian restaurants in regional towns remain the most reliable fallback.Pub accommodation with no kitchen access
Country pub "hotels" offering accommodation typically serve meals only from a limited bistro menu. If the pub is the only eating option in town and there's no room kitchen, choices can be genuinely restricted to chips and side salad. Book self-contained accommodation for any regional leg where possible.Australian barbecue culture
Social barbecues — a cultural cornerstone — typically share a grill surface across all food. If cross-contamination matters to you, bring your own food or ask whether a clean section of the grill is available. Sausage rolls and meat pies at sports events and service stations are essentially never vegan, even when they look like they might be.Dishes that look vegan but aren't
Café salads frequently arrive with feta as a default garnish. Grain bowls and roasted vegetable dishes at non-vegan venues are often dressed with aioli (egg-based). A "plant-based" label on a café board sometimes means reducing meat — not a strict vegan formulation. Always ask rather than assuming.Last updated February 2026 · Methodology & sources
Find your next trip
250+ countries, territories & islands ranked by vegan difficulty