The Nine Best Vegan Grilled Cheese Sandwiches In Los Angeles

Two guys go on a vegan grilled cheese sandwich tour of Los Angeles.

1. Wild Chive

Down in Long Beach there's a pop-up restaurant named The Wild Chive that serves a damn fine vegan grilled cheese sandwich. The Wild Chive is first on this list because it's the first place we stopped at, but - spoiler alert - it was also the best grilled cheese sandwich we had during our vegan grilled cheese tour.

The toast is incredibly buttery, the two types of cheese very gooey, the aioli spread tangy, and it's packed with hickory "bacon", arugula, and a generous amount of avocado. This is a really fantastic sandwich. It even comes with a side salad.

Wild Chive is pop-up restaurant in Long Beach that can be found every Sunday at Portfolio Coffeehouse at 2300 E 4th St, Long Beach, CA 90814.

2. Ahimsa Vegan Cafe

Next we went to Ahimsa Vegan Cafe, also in Long Beach. The spacious all-vegan cafe in Long Beach has a large menu. We ordered the Tomato, Basil, Grilled Cheese which was (oddly) served with tortilla chips. The basil flavor was the strongest element of the sandwich, which we correctly guessed used Chao brand vegan cheese.

Ahisma Vegan Cafe is in Long Beach at 40 E 4th St, Long Beach, CA 90802.

3. Vromage

Our mozzarella cheese with pesto basil and heirloom tomatoes sandwich on a baguette was not actually grilled - the eccentric owner of the vegan cheese store Vromage was very adamant that he will only do grilled cheese when he has a cheese in stock that melts and that we'd have to come back for that. He also aggressively would take orders and tell people to move on if they were being too chatty with him and he had another order to take. The owner of Vromage is a real character, but he makes damned good cheese.

Despite not being grilled, this was a great cheese sandwich, loaded with lots of soft delicious mozzarella.

Vromage is in West Hollywood at 7988 Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90046.

4. Doomie's Home Cookin'

Doomie's, the famed vegan dive restaurant, offers a straight up grilled cheese. It was not on the menu, but they didn't skip a beat when we asked for it. The sandwich comes with a side, and was great with the ranch that the side salad comes with. The sandwich itself was simple, but would satisfy a grilled cheese craving.

Doomie's is in Hollywood at 1253 Vine Street #9, Los Angeles, CA 90038.

5. Little Pine

Next up was the all-vegan restaurant Little Pine aka "Moby's Restaurant." The grilled cheese is on buttery Texas toast filled with their house made cheeses and is served with tomato soup, which was a nice pairing. Overall it was fluffy and gooey, but honestly so salty it was a bit difficult to finish.

At this point I had eaten five full sandwiches, while my friend Ryan had been pacing himself better had eaten only three and a half. I was getting SOOO full and was going to need to switch to half sandwiches.

Little Pine in Silver Lake at 2870 Rowena Ave, Silver Lake, CA 90039.

6. Ike's Place

Ike's Place has literally hundreds of sandwiches and the extremely massive menu is also very vegan friendly. We got as straightforward a vegan grilled cheese we could, but we did get it on sourdough so it has a nice tang covering the melted glob of Daiya cheese. There were some nice sprinkled herbs that also added to the flavor - but we though the bread was the biggest winner.

Ike's Place has dozens of locations in California and elsewhere. The Los Angeles location is in Westwood at 1151 Westwood Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90024.

7. Vegetable

Our friendly server at the vegan restaurant Vegetable told us they had small portions and recommended a couple plates. I had already eaten five and a half grilled cheese sandwiches so small portions sounded great to me - but then our order was actually one-and-a-half grilled cheese sandwiches with tomato basil soup - not so small after all.

The "duo of grilled cheese" featured a sharp English cheddar and a Monterey jack - which were both very gooey cashew cheeses - like almost more like queso sauce than sliced cheese in how runny they were. But we liked them and look forward to going back to Vegetable.

Vegetable is in Studio City at 3711 Cahuenga Blvd W, Studio City, CA 91604.

8. Locali

At Locali, a vegetarian/vegan-friendly deli and natural food market, we got a vegan-version of The Bourgeoischeese, which is a Daiya cheese sandwich with a lot of spinach, some dry tempeh bacon, red onion, balsamic vinaigrette, on a hard multi-grain bread. It was definitely more of a cheese sandwich than a grilled cheese, but even as a cheese sandwich it was far from my favorite thing I've had at Locali.

Locali has locations in Hollywood, Venice, and DTLA. The Hollywood location is at 5825 Franklin Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90028.

9. Organix

Organix, a natural food market with an all-vegan deli, offered the day's most basic grilled cheese sandwich. There were no frills - even the bread was a bit chewy. But when you consider this sandwich only cost $3, you might forgive its basic-ness. Still, we recommend you try their Street Dog with Coconut Bacon, which we ate on our vegan hot dog tour of Los Angeles.

Organix is in Eagle Rock at 1731 Colorado Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA, 90041.

Conclusion:

I ate a total of seven grilled cheeses this day while Ryan did pretty well for himself with five and a half. Get down to Long Beach and check out The Wild Chive!

Past Vegan Food Tours In Los Angeles