Aloo Posto for the Win! Kolkata Named ‘Most Vegan-Friendly City’ of 2025 by PETA India
In time for World Vegan Month (November), PETA India has named Kolkata as India’s Most Vegan-Friendly City of 2025, presenting Mayor Firhad Hakim who is also the Hon’ble Minister-In-Charge, West Bengal Department of Urban Development and Municipal Affairs with the award in recognition of the plethora of vegan foods common in Bengali cuisine and the city’s vegan-friendly eateries, events, and fashion designers.
Traditional Bengali cuisine is richer in vegan foods than most people realise. From aloo posto to aloo chop, cholar dal to tomato khejur chutney, puchka and more—the region’s vegetarian food is usually vegan (when made without ghee). Kolkata’s restaurants and eateries also do not disappoint, with delicious stir-fries, unique salads, and tofu specials from Burma Burma and modern, creative Asian options from The Flaming Bowl. Cafes like Aldo Café, Out and Beyond, Glenburn Café and Sienna Store and Café offer plant milk while The Daily also serves up vegan cake and vegan ice cream. Cloud bakery Oven to Plate is 100% vegan, and the Kolkata-based online retailer Vegan Daily has you covered for your vegan needs, including vegan (mock) seafood so that maacher jhol can be made the compassionate way. Meanwhile, Vegan World is Eastern India’s first vegan food distribution firm.
Bolstering Kolkata’s animal-friendly reputation is a lively vegan fashion scene, with locally-based Eori™ crafting high-quality, sustainable and affordable plant-based leather and The House of Ganges offering a variety of chic, animal-free accessories, including bags, wallets, totes, slings, and more made of luxurious vegan leather. Earlier this year, Kolkata was also the venue for an animal-awareness themed Durga Puja display by PETA India, which included a variety of vegan snacks – and encouraged a replacement of horse-drawn carriages to heritage-style motorised vehicles. The city also hosts a budding animal-friendly Facebook community: Kolkata Vegans.
From flavourful Bengali plant-powered dishes to sustainable vegan fashion and festive animal-friendly events, Kolkata is an unexpectedly delightful destination for vegans and the vegan-curious. PETA India is celebrating Kolkata’s ever-expanding vegan offerings for setting a shining example and helping to make the world a kinder place for all.
PETA India raises awareness of the extreme suffering endured by animals bred and killed for food, as depicted in its widely publicised video exposé ‘Glass Walls‘. On factory farms, chickens are confined by the thousands to severely crowded sheds filled with ammonia fumes from accumulated waste and deprived of everything natural and important to them. These chickens, along with other animals, are crammed into slaughterhouse-bound vehicles, where many sustain broken bones, suffocate, or die in other ways. At the slaughterhouses, workers often use blunt blades to cut the throats of goats, sheep, and other animals, while fish are left to suffocate or are gutted alive on fishing boats.
Each person who goes vegan spares nearly 200 animals per year from immense suffering and a terrifying death. In addition, raising animals for food is a leading cause of water pollution as well as water and land use, and a United Nations report concluded that a global shift towards vegan eating is necessary to combat the worst effects of the climate catastrophe.
