Nobu is the fine-dining group built around chef Nobuyuki Matsuhisa’s Japanese-Peruvian cooking, with restaurants across the US and worldwide. Its signature dish is black cod with miso, and the menu is overwhelmingly built on fish.
Answer: it depends entirely on the location, and Nobu does not publish enough information for anyone to be certain. Nobu puts no allergen, ingredient or dietary information on its menus at all — there is not a single vegan, vegetarian or gluten-free mark anywhere on noburestaurants.com. There is a real vegetable section at every location, but nothing on it is confirmed vegan by Nobu, and several of the dishes this page previously recommended are not on any current US menu.
Checked against the published menus for Nobu Fifty Seven, Nobu Downtown and Nobu Malibu, all accessed 28 July 2026.
The Two Things That Make Nobu Hard To Write About
Nobu publishes nothing about ingredients or allergens. Its menus give dish names and prices and no more. There is no allergen matrix, no nutrition page, no dietary key. The only footnote on the menu is the standard raw-food warning. That means nothing on this page can be called confirmed vegan from an official source, and any article that tells you otherwise is filling in the blanks.
The menus differ substantially between locations. This is not a chain in the fast-food sense. Compare the vegetable sections at three US Nobus on the same day:
- Nobu Fifty Seven (New York): Vegetables Handroll with Goma Miso, Tofu New Style, Tofu & Vegetables Spicy Garlic, Brussels Sprouts Goma Ponzu, Cauliflower Jalapeño, Warm Mushroom Salad, Mushroom Toban Yaki, Eggplant Miso, Field Greens, Shiitake Salad Spicy Lemon Dressing, Butter Lettuce Salad Tofu Aioli.
- Nobu Downtown (New York): largely the same list, but with Shojin Vegetable Tempura Selection and Roasted Cauliflower Jalapeno Salsa, and without the Mushroom Toban Yaki or Butter Lettuce Salad.
- Nobu Malibu: a completely different and shorter list — Okinawa Sweet Potatoes, Eggplant Spicy Miso, Warm Mushroom Salad, Roasted Cauliflower, Crispy Brussels Sprouts, Housemade Tofu, Vegetables Spicy Garlic.
So check your specific restaurant’s menu before you go. A dish that exists in Manhattan may not exist in Malibu.
Dishes This Page Recommended That Nobu Doesn’t Serve
None of the following appear on the current menus at Nobu Fifty Seven, Nobu Downtown or Nobu Malibu: Quinoa Truffle Risotto, Roasted Leek with Miso Sauce, Shimeji Mushroom Taco, Cauliflower Creamy Spicy Tempura, Vegetarian Sushi Platter, Nobu-Style Caesar Salad, Vegetarian Truffle Rice, Spicy Edamame (the menus list plain Edamame and Edamame Choclo) and the coconut pudding dipped in dark chocolate. They have been removed.
One of them is worth dwelling on, because the old article contradicted itself. It called the Quinoa Truffle Risotto “made entirely vegan” and then described it, in the next sentence, as quinoa “cooked with dashi.” Dashi is classically made with katsuobushi — dried, fermented bonito. A kombu-only dashi exists, but Nobu never said which it used, and an article cannot call a dish vegan and describe it as cooked in a fish stock in the same breath.
The Caesar salad claim had the same problem in reverse. Caesar dressing conventionally contains anchovy, egg and parmesan; calling a Caesar salad vegan because it was “made without cream” misses all three.
What Is Actually On The Menu, And What To Ask
These are real dishes with published prices. None is confirmed vegan — each entry below names the specific thing you would need to ask about.
Eggplant Miso — $21
On the menu at all three locations (as Eggplant Spicy Miso at Malibu, $20). This is the plant counterpart to the black cod, and the closest thing Nobu has to a signature vegetable dish. The unknown is the miso marinade: Nobu’s den miso recipes conventionally use sake and mirin, and the brand publishes nothing about whether dashi or bonito goes into it. Ask about the marinade.
Edamame and Shishito Peppers
Edamame, Edamame Choclo, Shishito Peppers Sea Salt and Shishito Peppers Den Miso are on the New York menus. The sea-salt shishitos and plain edamame are the simplest things on the menu. The Den Miso version raises the same marinade question as the eggplant.
Cauliflower — $28 (Fifty Seven and Downtown), $20 (Malibu)
Listed as Cauliflower Jalapeño, Roasted Cauliflower Jalapeno Salsa or simply Roasted Cauliflower depending on location. Nobu does not say what is in the salsa.
Warm Mushroom Salad — $34 ($28 at Malibu)
On every menu checked. The unknown is the dressing.
Tofu Dishes
Tofu New Style ($21), Tofu & Vegetables Spicy Garlic ($35), Housemade Tofu at Malibu ($26) and Mushroom Toban Yaki ($34) at Fifty Seven. Nobu’s “new style” preparation is a hot-oil dressing finished with soy and, conventionally, a ponzu — and ponzu very often contains bonito. Ask about the sauce.
Shojin Vegetable Tempura Selection — $24
Seven pieces, on the Nobu Downtown menu. Shojin refers to Japanese Buddhist temple cooking, which is plant-based by tradition — but Nobu makes no such claim about this dish, publishes no batter recipe, and says nothing about whether the fryer is shared with the rock shrimp and lobster tempura that are on the same menu. Tempura batter commonly contains egg. Both questions are worth asking.
Vegetables Handroll with Goma Miso — $9
The cheapest thing in the vegetable section. Sushi rice is normally seasoned with vinegar, sugar and salt, but Nobu does not publish its recipe.
Two Items To Be Careful With
Baby Corn Honey Truffle appears on the New York menus. The name is Nobu’s and honey is not vegan.
Butter Lettuce Salad Tofu Aioli ($28, Fifty Seven) sounds plant-based but is named after an aioli, which is conventionally egg-based. Nobu does not say whether its tofu aioli replaces the egg or merely adds tofu.
What It Costs
This page previously said an average meal runs $50-$60 a head and quoted a seven-course option at around $700 per person. Neither figure came from Nobu. Here are figures Nobu does publish, as of 28 July 2026:
- Vegetable dishes at Nobu Downtown and Fifty Seven run from $9 for the vegetable handroll to $35 for Tofu & Vegetables Spicy Garlic.
- The Classic lunch bento at Nobu Fifty Seven is $69; the Signature is $88. Neither is vegetarian.
- The Summer Tasting menu at Nobu Fifty Seven is $150 per person. Every course on it is seafood or beef.
A vegetable-only meal made of three or four dishes from the vegetables section is therefore realistically in the $60-$100 range before drinks, based on Nobu’s own listed prices.
Nobu’s Cookbook
Matsuhisa published a cookbook of meat-free recipes, and this page called it a vegan cookbook. It is Nobu’s Vegetarian Cookbook, published in 2012 — vegetarian, not vegan, which in Japanese cooking is a meaningful distinction given how much dashi and egg appear in it. We have removed the claim that it contains 60 vegan recipes; that number was not sourced.
Endnotes
Nobu is a genuinely good restaurant with a real vegetable section, and you can eat well there without ordering fish. What you cannot do is walk in and know what is vegan, because Nobu does not tell you and does not publish anything that would let you work it out.
The practical approach at a restaurant in this price bracket is the one the kitchen expects anyway: say you are vegan when you book, and again when you sit down, and name the specific things — dashi in the stocks and marinades, bonito in the ponzu, egg in the tempura batter, and the shared fryer. A kitchen at this level can usually accommodate that. But it is a conversation, not something you can settle from the menu.
