DBL Market

A plant-based spot in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, serving vegan pastries and savoury dishes from nachos to zucchini lasagne.

For anyone who assumed a trip to the Dominican Republic meant a fortnight without decent vegan cake, DBL Market has good news, and the country’s animal-loving travellers can exhale.

This Santo Domingo spot turns out some of the finest plant-based pastries we’ve found anywhere. Sweet potato brownies, snicker cupcakes, choc chip cookies: the case for a vegan birthday in the Dominican capital is, frankly, made. The sweet stuff alone would justify the detour.

But DBL Market is not content to be a one-note bakery. The kitchen brings the spice too, with plant-based nachos, zucchini lasagne and a genuinely dangerous range of dips. It is savoury cooking with personality, the sort of menu that rewards ordering widely and sharing little.

What we like is the lack of apology in any of it. There is no hand-wringing here about what plant-based food can or can’t be: just a kitchen having an obvious good time, and a confidence that its pastries and its nachos can hold their own against any other table in town.

Santo Domingo’s food scene is broad and lively, and DBL Market stakes out a particular corner of it: cruelty-free, generous, and entirely uninterested in being worthy.

For travellers who want their plant-based eating to come with a sense of fun, and a serious dessert section, this is the address. Come for the cake, stay for the dips, and leave already planning the next visit.