El Grifo
A friendly, unpretentious vegan restaurant in Puerto Rico, serving veganised comfort classics, creative cocktails and standout desserts.
Puerto Rico’s vegan scene is firmly on the rise, and El Grifo sits, more or less permanently, at the top of it. The appeal is simple: incredible food, and not an animal-based product in sight.
The kitchen’s premise is comfort-food translation: all your favourite dishes, veganised. The menu runs through chicken and waffles, nachos and burgers, the sort of plates that win over plant-based and meat-eating diners alike. This is a restaurant to seek out if you follow a vegan diet, and an equally good one to bring sceptical friends along to; either way, it lingers in the memory long after the final bite.
The desserts deserve their own warning. They are good enough to have you quietly recalculating your return flight, just for the chance to come back and work through the rest of the menu.
What gives El Grifo its charm is the lack of pretension. It is stylish yet down to earth, a friendly room with no airs, where the focus stays squarely on delicious food, creative cocktails and genuinely good service. Plant-forward dining without a hint of the worthy.
For travellers who want to see why Puerto Rico’s vegan kitchens are getting attention, El Grifo is the obvious place to start, and, in all likelihood, the place you’ll want to finish too.
