Lindsay McDougall had to swear off meat when he joined the punk rock band Frenzal Rhomb in 1996.

"The singer was vegetarian and he said I wasn't allowed in if I didn't go vegetarian," he said.

The current presenter of Drive at ABC Illawarra, McDougall said it showed him the ethical side of the lifestyle, and by 1998 he was a vegan — long before it was a thing.

"I remember there was maybe two restaurants in Newtown in Sydney that had lots of vegetarian and vegan options, and there were a few restaurants in the city as well," he said.

"But in terms of getting stuff for eating at home, there was tofu and there were veggie burgers."

More people are willing to try the food, even if they're not vegan. ( Supplied: Fidel Fernando and Christine Mendoza )

McDougall remembered there was little to choose from during the band's 1999 tour.

"The catering for the vegans was the nut meat that came out like a tin of dog food — it slid out of the can and was cut into discs and thrown onto the barbecue."

How things have changed over the past 20 years.

As more and more people in Sydney adopt plant-based diets, restaurants have been forced to evolve to satisfy their customers' appetites.

"You can be sitting on your couch, typing on your phone and order a pizza that delivers to your house with vegan meat on it and vegan cheese on it, and that's with the mainstream pizza places as well as most local pizza places," McDougall said.

"Every takeaway place now does some vegan food ... every pub has a vegan menu now ... every main street has a restaurant where you can be guaranteed to eat vegan food."

He said there were even a bunch of late-night burger outlets that didn't highlight the fact they were vegan.

"You've got people drunkenly walking out of the pub or the cinema getting their burgers, having no idea that they're not actually causing the unnecessary deaths of any animals while they're having their drunken snack.

"I feel like businesses have seen the dollar in it."

This Pad Ke Mao is one of almost 30 items on the vegan menu at Newtown's Thai Pothong. ( Supplied )

Vegetarianism on the rise

According to Roy Morgan research, almost 2.5 million Australians have diets that are either entirely or almost all plant-based — that's an increase of 11.2 per cent since 2014.

That's despite Australia having one of the highest levels of meat consumption in the world.

Tani Khara from the University of Technology Sydney said the steady rise of vegetarianism was most notable in the capital cities.

"Sydney has the highest proportion of people who claim that they are plant-based eaters ... followed by Hobart and Melbourne."

Ms Khara said Euromonitor International had found that Australia was the third fastest growing vegan market in the world behind the United Arab Emirates and China.

She also pointed to the Google Trends analytics tool that found Australians had the world's biggest appetite for learning about things that were vegan.

"The analysis of searches from around the globe in 2018 showed that Australia actually had the highest percentage of searches for the word vegan."

Tracina Williams, Tina Williams and Tyree Barnette are the team behind Southern Soul. ( Supplied: Fidel Fernando and Christine Mendoza )

Tracina Williams and her husband Tyree Barnette moved to Sydney from North Carolina in December 2012.

They own Southern Soul, which specialises in vegan soul food.

"Soul food itself, the term, refers to cuisine that was developed by Africans who were enslaved and brought to the southern US and continued to be developed by their descendants," Ms Williams said.

She said vegan soul food emerged about 10 years ago in the United States but was rare in Australia.

"We don't know of any other vegan soul food places in Australia, so we call ourselves the first," she laughed.

This vegan pulled jackfruit barbecue sandwich attracts long queues. ( Supplied: Fidel Fernando and Christine Mendoza )

The couple have been attending markets in Sydney, often with Ms Williams' chef mother Tina, since February 2018, and say business is really good.

"When we go to markets, most times we have very long lines and people are really excited to try it," Ms Williams said.

"I would say, just as an estimate, that 50 per cent or more of our patrons are actually not fully vegan."

She said she was excited that more people were turning to vegan food.

"I think people are going to become more and more accepting of it.

"It's interesting when people on TV shows talk about vegan food — honestly, it's often quite negative and people feel like it's being forced upon them.

"[They say], 'I'm going to eat my lamb and potatoes and I'm going to eat my steak'.

"But I think that's going to start changing, especially as people start to get better vegan options, they realise they can go two days without eating meat and they'll want to do that."