Vegan guide to Essex Market

Essex Market is one of the oldest markets in New York City. With around a century under its belt, the market relocated in 2019 across Delancey to a new building. Now, Essex Market and Market Line make up the market space. This is your guide to finding vegan options at Essex Market.

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All the vegan eats at Essex Market. What are you trying? ##NeverStopExploring ##veganfoodie ##essexmarket ##lowereastside ##vegannyc

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The first floor, which is Essex Market, features food stalls and groceries packed with fresh produce and more. The bottom floor, Market Line, is a bazaar with tons of food … some of which is vegan. We’ll have a guide to that coming soon(ish).

What’s vegan at Essex Market

Riverdel Vegan Cheese Shop

Locally owned Riverdel Cheese is the only all-vegan stall at Essex Market. Founded by Michaela Grob, she opened her first artisanal vegan cheese shop in her neighborhood of Prospect Heights, Brooklyn. Now, she’s in Essex Market and has curated an incredible line-up of her own cheese, as well as cheese from around the country.

Plus, Riverdel offers rotating hot sandwiches like a triple grilled cheese. 

In addition, the stall also sells vegan groceries from crackers to meats.

Peasant Stock

Soup and cornbread are the name of the game at the family-owned Peasant Stock. Run by mom and daughter, Christine and Emma Juritsch, they’ve been a market staple since 2003. The stall serves soups made from scratch, many of which are vegan, and rotate them often. In the summer, they even offer gazpachos. Expect soups like curried chickpea veggie, green French lentil soup, tomato basil soup and much more. Our favorite soup: mushroom and wild rice. 

Mille Nonne

If you’re craving Italian eats, head to Mille Nonne (which means A Thousand Grandmothers). Owned by husband-wife duo Bernardo Notargiacomo and Pilar Rigon, Pilar came to the city armed with her mom’s handwritten recipes and a desire to cook traditional Italian food for New Yorkers. When it comes to vegan eats, their gnocchi pesto was named by Yelp as the best in NYC — vegan or not. It’s made with arugula and nut-free (they use sunflower seeds).

Here, the homemade sweet potato and red beet gnocchi is vegan, along with their potato gnocchi.

Other vegan options include the baked eggplant topped with vegan cheese, veggie of the day, and their Roman chickpea pasta with bok choy, a creamy, rich twist on a Roman soup dish.

For dessert, order the vegan chocolate pudding topped with orange zest and dark chocolate chunks. Nothing at this stall goes to waste — they couple operate a zero-waste business which is rad.

Don Ceviche

Don Ceviche is a ceviche stall at Essex Market. Owner Lenin Costas launched Don Ceviche in 2017 after spending his early years helping his abuela at her restaurant in Lima, Peru. 

The vegan option here is a rainbow chickpea ceviche bowl.

It comes packed with mixed greens, quinoa, sweet potato, Peruvian soft corn, tomato, cucumber, celery and chickpeas with Peruvian yellow chilis, ginger, garlic and lime.

Like some heat? Add some red Peruvian chili to the mix.

Sugar Sweet Sunshine Bakery

This popular bakery’s second location (catch their first on Rivington) is owned by friends Deb Weiner and Peg Williams. They worked at Magnolia Bakery and turned their love of cupcakes into a business, opening their own bakery in 2002. 

Over the years, they’ve become known for their puddings. While they don’t have any vegan puddings (yet), they do offer vegan cupcakes in a handful of flavors, plus a shortbread cookie with raspberry jam.

Zerza

The most vegan-friendly food stall, Zerza serves Moroccan eats. Raduone Eljaouhari, who came to the United States in 1994, opened Zerza in 2019.

The healthy, flavorful Moroccan spot offers a variety of vegan options. To start, nearly all of their appetizers are vegan. They include options like hummus, zalouk (roasted eggplant spread), and harira soup with tomatoes, celery, chickpeas and herbs.

For the main course, order the veggie couscous or falafel pita.

Dhamaka

A sit-down restaurant at Essex Market serving provincial Indian cuisine, Chef and partner Chintan Pandya and restaurateur Roni Mazumdar of the critically acclaimed Rahi and Adda Indian Canteen have a few vegan options on their menu.

You can order ragda patice, a potato patty with white peas and green chili, beguni with eggplant, turmeric and kasundi for starters. 

Other options include Bharela Marcha with sweet peppers, peanuts, fresh coriander and veggie basmati rice.

Other vegan options at Essex Market

While not specifically noted as vegan, you can also find vegan eats at:

• Davidovich Bakery — assortment of bagels, tofu spread
• Arancini Bros — occasionally has a vegan arancini ball
• Essex Squeeze — bowls
• Koti Berliner Doner Kebab — create your own vegan pita with a vegan sauce

115 Delancey St., New York, 10002, hours vary per stall.

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