Damn, It's Vegan
Field Notes on Queer Kitchens, Diaspora Burgers, and Edible Resistance
Last autumn, I visited Helsinki for the first time. My wife had been there twice previously, and one of the eateries she frequented was Junk Y Vegan—located a stone's throw from the main railway station and a skip and a jump from the city library. As the name suggests, it's a fully vegan restaurant specializing in burgers, fries, nachos, and comfort food staples. To a newly arrived tourist like myself, it offered recognizable comfort on a plate alongside the very Finnish "long drink."
We liked it so much, we dined there twice. The first swing was on our way north of town to see the duo Maustetytöt play at a design conference. The second came after my wife returned from a day trip to Tallinn; the restaurant sat perfectly between the ferry terminal and our Airbnb. Both times, the food was fast, hot, and deeply satisfying. The spicy BBQ seitan sandwich was a smoky, messy marvel, while the nachos—an unexpected interpretation for this Texas-raised eater—offered crisp strips instead of chips and house-made dips that worked surprisingly well. No compromises here.
What struck me wasn't just the food, but the vibe: rainbow cushions, chalkboard slogans, a little chaos, and a lot of color. It felt like a queer anarchist rec room with deep fryer access. Which made sense when I later saw Junk Y Vegan listed on the We Speak Gay platform as a queer-friendly business. Their own Google Maps blurb is part manifesto, part menu:
DAMN, IT'S VEGAN! Junk y Vegan on täysin vegaaninen ravintola, joka avattiin Helsingin keskustaan Sanomataloon Toukokuussa 2021. Haluamme tarjota konstailematonta streetfoodia ja tuoda vegaanisuuden helpommin löydettäväksi, lähestyttäväksi ja nautittavaksi. Heitetään käsitys, että veganismi olisi vain papuja ja salaattia, romukoppaan. Meillä vegaanin ei tarvitse enää olla se, joka tekee kompromisseja, meiltä löytyy suunmukainen vaihtoehto olipa ruokavalio mikä tahansa.
Roughly translated: let's toss the idea that veganism is just beans and salad into the trash. Here, the vegan doesn't have to be the one making compromises. That's a quiet revolution in a bun.
It speaks to something broader: the global reach of vegan food as a post-national comfort cuisine. You could likely walk into a vegan burger joint in Tokyo, São Paulo, or Berlin and recognize the meal’s architecture, even if the sauces and plating change. But vegan food spreads differently than traditional cuisines. It doesn’t travel via conquest, diaspora, or nostalgia. It moves through networks of shared values and aesthetic codes.
That "queer anarchist rec room" vibe isn't unique to Helsinki. It's a node in a global soft-architecture: a scene you can spot from Portland to Prague. Reclaimed wood, rainbow flags, tattooed staff, DIY playlists. These aren't just choices—they're signals: you're safe here. You can be ethical and full, politically awake and flavor-sated.
Diasporic cuisine has always been a form of edible resistance—a way to carry home across borders and generations. A Nuyorican pop-up at a Portland market isn't just selling lunch; it's making history visible in a place that didn't expect to see it. These are culinary laboratories of necessity, forged in walk-up kitchens and tight budgets, where the constraints of migration and survival become the engines of invention.
When veganism enters this terrain, it forms a new kind of compound rebellion. A vegan mofongo, a jackfruit birria taco, or a BBQ seitan pastelillo isn't just fusion. It's a refusal to choose between politics and heritage. It's honoring your ancestors and your ethics, your community and your conscience.
And in nations where queerness is still under siege, food becomes a covert form of pride. A drag brunch here. A queer-owned vegan café there. Meals as gatherings. Cafés as sanctuaries. Resistance not just worn but tasted. Nourishment as insurgency.
This convergence is no accident. In Portland, for example, a vegan burger joint hosts regular drag brunches—camp and ethics served side by side. The food is plant-based, the vibe is gender-expansive, and the stage is set for a kind of joyful defiance. It’s not just cuisine—it’s communion. Queer expression and animal-free comfort layered together like sauce on seitan.
Across the globe, from Helsinki to Portland, a new kind of restaurant is emerging: one where the menu is plant-based, the politics are unapologetic, and the mood is joyfully subversive. These aren’t just places to eat—they’re edible affirmations.
Of course, it’s not lost on me that the ability to sample post-national vegan burgers in Helsinki, or stumble upon drag brunches in Portland, is its own kind of blessing. Privilege, in this story, sits quietly in the wings—easy to ignore, easier still to forget. But if food is a map of who gets to move, to choose, to claim space without apology, then it’s worth asking: who gets to taste this freedom?
Food becomes the medium where people write new stories with old flavors. And sometimes, when it’s really working, you take a bite and say: Damn. It’s vegan.