Ljubljana is a small town with around 300 thousand inhabitants (half a million in the metro area), but still the capital of Ljubljana. If you are a vegan traveling en route Vienna, Zagreb, and that general direction, it’s a must stop! For example, if you are traveling from Germany to Istria, Croatia you might want to spend a day here and enjoy all the vegan options! Once you go south, vegan food is going to become very limited compared to Ljubljana!

In this post, I hope to list all of those vegan options and update the post over time as I go in and check them out. One by one. Oh, the sacrifice I am making. Oh, well, a man’s got to do, what a man’s got to do. Here we go!

Barbarella Arkade Bistro

The first place we checked out was Barbarella Arkade Bistro. I was a bit skeptical after reading some negative reviews on  Trip Advisor, but as I already mentioned, somebody has to do the work. Besides, food photos were rather enticing, and this is an all-vegan bistro which is a blessing if you are coming from my hometown.

Whenever we arrive at a vegan bistro for the first time, if there is a daily soup that’s available for ordering, we always go for it. In the photo below you can see their asparagus soup and it was super tasty! I don’t know what your stand is on bread, but if you eat it, you will risk being full just after eating this combination!

I saw one customer return with a complaint that the soup was not hot enough. Not sure what that was about, both of our soups were perfect “soup hot” temperature. But nonetheless, I saw the beginnings of a bad review for someone else. Speaking of bad reviews, it’s like this place can’t catch a break. Here’s what happened next!

Slovenian is not my strong suit, but as they say, I can get in and out of trouble using it. So I overheard someone coming in a few moments after their recent phone call. Yes, I do turn into Sherlock Homes sometimes… Anyway, I actually overheard the phone call, and this actually lead to the misunderstanding in the first place. The customer left a car parked in the middle of the street, and he was hoping to grab a vegan burger for takeaway. However, the person taking the call though he was just calling in to ask if takeaways are possible. Therefore, they never took the order!

Takeaway at Barbarella? Yes, but you have to make an order, LOL

Anyway, the guy was just a smidge furious, and this also looked to me like another bad review in the making. I witnessed both scenarios first hand, and I am not making it up! But I see how these situations turn into 1-star reviews if the staff isn’t extra careful! Anyway, if you call in to order a takeaway, make sure that you actually make the order. Looks like these things happen…

Moving on with the Barbarella Arkade vegan bistro review. For the main course, I tried the BBQ vegan cheeseburger. My fiance had a sandwich because she was almost full after that soup + bread combination. I teased her about ordering more bread but to each his own. Both were very tasty, no complaints. I wish they were a bit cheaper, but it’s not like we are doing this every day, so our budget for the month survived. Another thing I wasn’t excited about too much were the high-stools we had to sit on, but I am not a huge snob so I managed just fine.

Besides a great daily soup and tasty main course, there’s plenty of vegan delicacies. So we were in for a treat! At least I was because my fiancee couldn’t take one more bite. In the gallery below, you can see how they advertise their Today’s special, the desert we had and the bridge and Prešeren Monument that are nearby. I am a chocolate junkie (sue me), so I ordered a chocolate cake, and skipped their vegan sweet pie. Well, at least I have something to look forward to next time. This was the second time we were there, and we are certainly looking forward to our third visit.

For great vegan coffee and even better atmosphere – Le Petit Cafe

Although you can drink vegan coffee at the Barbarella bistro, we just couldn’t spend all our time at the same place. I found on Google maps this nice cafe that was just a short walk away. You can see in the pictures below, the place really lives up to the name. It’s a nice little cafe with a cozy atmosphere. Most importantly the coffee was good. The cream wasn’t great, but the taste and texture were very good. We were there twice, and both times they had soy milk, so I wouldn’t expect problems in the future.

Break from the downtown – the countryside

We left Ljubljana for a short trip to the countryside. Ever since I became vegan I was thinking about the picture I had in my mind. It was a picture of cows on the green hills of Slovenia. That’s where I had my first (and last) cup of cow’s milk straight from the barn. Throughout the years, the idiot in me thought that that was how the milk was created. Small farms that are kept very clean, with cows walking around freely on the green fields. Little calves besides their moms. But then I watched all those documentaries and the rest is history.

The cows (and the smell) is still there, I am just sad I forgot to take a few photos of those wonderful green hills! Hopefully, I’ll be able to update this post in the future. Anyway, we went to Mozirski grove, which is something like a flower park. We’ve never been to something like this, so it was a beautiful experience. Check out the gallery below.

On our way back home, we made another stop in Ljubljana. This time we decided to check out the Loving Hut. You can’t really compare Loving Hut with Barbarella because they cater to the different audience, they are in very different locations, a different type of food which is served differently, and so on.

The Loving Hut for your loving

The first thing you will notice is the “look and feel” since the Loving Hut is very close to the main train station in Ljubljana. I am not the biggest fan of these, so I won’t bother you with this personal point of view. The very next thing you’ll notice after walking in is that this is more of a buffet than it is a restaurant. So if you like to pick your food from a set of ready dishes, you’ll enjoy this! Plenty of various salads, plates of pasta, soups, desserts, everything!

And yes, everything is vegan, in case all the photos of famous vegans weren’t enough. Speaking of the photos, you can see my plate in the gallery below. I know it doesn’t look very appealing (read the previous paragraph about the train station), especially the soup, but everything was tastier than it looked! What really surprised me was the dark risotto and the cake we took home! The best part though is the invoice in the end. This place is a lot more affordable than for example Barbarella!