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Award-winning vegan restaurant Sora Lella will be opening a second location in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Sora Lella is the city’s first-ever vegan Roman restaurant. It is owned and staffed by an Italian family, and they create authentic Italian dishes with plant-based ingredients. Both the original and new locations are in the southern Edinburgh neighborhood of Newington.
Sora Lella announced a “brand new” sister restaurant in a social media post late last year. “Get ready for a fresh twist on the flavors you love, with a whole new experience to discover,” wrote the team on Instagram.
A short reel posted earlier this month showed people painting and decorating the new restaurant and bar spaces. Alongside the clip, the team wrote “Exciting things are brewing behind the scenes! We can’t wait to reveal the opening date soon. Stay tuned!”
Sora Lella was nominated for best barista, best pasta chef, and best chef in 2024’s Scottish Italian Awards, and previously won an award for the Best Vegan Restaurant in Scotland. The team’s dishes were named among Stag Web’s 30 best vegan takeaways in the UK in 2023.
Read more: Energy Company Opens ‘UK’s First’ Plant-Based Workplace Canteen
Scotland embraces plant-based food
Edinburgh is consistently listed as one of the best places to find vegan food, and it ranked near the top of Hello Fresh’s 2024 list of the most affordable vegan cities in the UK.
Edinburgh previously made vegan history when it became the first Scottish city – and the first-ever European capital – to officially endorse the Plant Based Treaty. The council’s assessment report on the potential impact of signing the treaty said “The science is clear.”
“There is robust evidence that diets high in plant protein and low in meat and dairy make for lower greenhouse gas emissions, and that consequently, shifting consumption towards plant-based diets has a major mitigation potential,” continued the report.
In 2022 a survey of Scottish farmers found that they would be willing to ditch animal agriculture to support climate crisis mitigation, provided they are supported to do so. The same year, The student union of the University of Stirling – which is 40 miles away – voted to in favor of serving 100 percent plant-based food from 2025.
This article was amended on January 27, 2025, to remove mention that The University of Stirling voted to go 100 percent plant-based in 2022. It was the student union that voted to do so, not the university itself.
Read more: New Research Highlights Growing Plant-Based Shift In The UK
