A Pizzeria and Wine Bar Joins Boston’s Growing Collection of Strictly Vegan Restaurants

Double Zero, a New York-based pizzeria and wine bar, opens at 163 Newbury St. in Boston’s Back Bay on Friday, July 9, the latest entry in the Boston area’s small — but growing — strictly vegan dining scene. It’s the fifth Double Zero location from restaurateur and author Matthew Kenney, whose meatless restaurant portfolio spans from Bahrain to Buenos Aires and beyond. The original location in New York’s East Village is on Michelin’s Bib Gourmand list, which honors restaurants Michelin inspectors deem both affordable and excellent.

While this new Double Zero location is Kenney’s first Boston restaurant, he expanded his empire to New England in 2019 with Plant City, an entirely vegan food hall that includes another Double Zero, as well as a coffee shop, market, burger joint, and more. (The Boston Double Zero was actually announced way back in June 2018 with a target opening date of October 2018, so this location has been a long time coming.) But even before that, Kenney was no stranger to New England: He’s a native of coastal Maine and opened a restaurant called the Gothic in Belfast, Maine, in 2013.

The new Newbury Street restaurant serves pizzas with toppings like truffles and spicy vegan pepperoni, and there are gluten-free options available. In addition to pizza, Double Zero serves other Italian-inspired dishes, such as a pasta Bolognese made with a walnut and mushroom ragu and an eggplant parm with cashew mozzarella, rice mozzarella, and macadamia ricotta. To drink, the wine list features biodynamic selections, and there’s also a small collection of mostly local beers, ciders, and hard kombucha, including a hard pineapple kombucha from Flying Embers, which is opening soon in Roxbury.

Double Zero has communal seating and an open kitchen indoors, and there’s a patio for some classic Newbury Street people-watching. Delivery is also available via most major third-party platforms. The restaurant is open for lunch and dinner daily.

Double Zero isn’t the only New York-based Italian restaurant to hit Newbury Street in recent days: Major Food Group opened Contessa on the rooftop of the Newbury Boston last month. And in other Italian-food-from-New-York news, chef Mark Ladner — a Massachusetts native but acclaimed longtime chef at New York’s now-closed Del Posto — will open an Italian restaurant in Cambridge later this year.

It’s also a busy time for vegan food around Boston: Local vegan diners should pay a visit to Littleburg in Somerville’s Union Square, which has been operating as a pop-up since 2017 but opens the doors to its permanent location today, starting with takeout. Plus, Cambridge recently saw the opening of a new location of Malden classic Donut Villa Diner, which, while not a vegan restaurant, does offer one of the largest vegan menus around (including plenty of doughnuts).

Update, 11:30 a.m.: This piece previously mentioned that Littleburg was coming soon to Somerville; it has been updated to indicate that Littleburg’s opening is also today.