Malta Gets its First Vegan Sushi Takeout Restaurant

All-vegan sushi restaurant Green Sushi recently opened in Gzira, Malta. The country’s first plant-based sushi eatery offers a menu of more than 12 sushi rolls and inari, such as Spicy Kimchi Crab, Jackfruit Tuna Rolls, Spicy Supreme Inari, Battered Spicy Tofu Rolls, and Teriyaki Eel Rolls. The eatery also offers homemade vegan cake in flavors such as chocolate pineapple, carrot cake, and traditional Russian Medovik cake. Romanian-Ukrainian couple Vladyslav Hryshchenko and Ionut Raducu launched the restaurant just two months after the COVID-19 pandemic left them unemployed in March. 

“During the start of COVID-19, my boyfriend and I lost our jobs and after watching Netflix for two months and doing nothing, we couldn’t continue it any longer and decided to start making vegan sushi,” Hryshchenko told VegNews. “After I went vegan five years ago, I’ve been missing that experience of good sushi but it was always the same avocado-and-cucumber roll everywhere we went, so Ionut and I started working on recipes, and at some point we realized that we should share the flavors and textures with others. Really, it’s win-win situation for the planet, animals, and people’s health”

Green Sushi currently offers takeout and delivery only, and the plan is to eventually open a sit-down restaurant. For every order, Green Sushi donates one euro ($1.16) to plant a tree with Team Trees. Last month, the eatery was able to plant 114 trees. The founders’ goal is to plant 1,000 trees in the coming months.