The Best Restaurants in Frankfurt: A Guide by Cuisine & District

Frankfurt was long seen as a city where you work and enjoy yourself elsewhere. That has changed thoroughly. Today the city has one of the most exciting food scenes in Germany — from the apple-wine tavern with Handkäs to the two-star temple, from the Thai street-food kitchen in the Bahnhofsviertel to Levantine cuisine in Sachsenhausen. Because the city is compact, every district has its own culinary character. So I’ll sort the scene for you by cuisine and district and tell you where it’s really worth it.

Hessian & traditional: Sachsenhausen

If you’re in Frankfurt, you should try Hessian cuisine — and nowhere is that better than in Alt-Sachsenhausen, the heart of apple-wine culture. Here “Äppelwoi” is served in the Bembel, along with hearty classics like green sauce with egg and potatoes, Handkäs mit Musik or schnitzel with green sauce.

A firm institution is “Zum Gemalten Haus”, one of Sachsenhausen’s best-known apple-wine taverns, with its typical painted façade and long wooden tables where you get talking even to strangers. Similarly steeped in tradition is “Adolf Wagner”. My advice: avoid the noisiest party lanes and seek out one of the quieter, long-established houses — the food there is more honest and the crowd more mixed. Reserving almost always pays off at the weekend.

German cuisine without cliché: Bornheim

If you’re after solid German and regional cuisine away from the tourist bustle, head to Bornheim. The “Bornheimer Ratskeller” stands for good home-style cooking that takes its craft seriously. Bornheim as a whole — around Berger Straße — is wonderfully unpretentious: many small places where the neighbourhood eats, not the guidebook.

International & buzzy: the Bahnhofsviertel

No district has changed culinarily as much as the Bahnhofsviertel. From the once-seedy quarter has come Frankfurt’s most exciting eating district, densely packed with bars and restaurants from all over the world.

Trend-setting was “Maxie Eisen”, a deli and cocktail bar that helped shape the scene and remains a good port of call to this day. For authentic Thai cuisine there’s “Soi 22”: chef Sittichai Pummarin brought his grandmother’s street-food recipes from Bangkok — honest, spicy, without pandering to German palates. The Bahnhofsviertel is also the place where it’s best to move from venue to venue: a drink here, a small plate there.

Neighbourly & regional: the Nordend

The Nordend is homely, comfortably bourgeois and full of small restaurants where regulars come and go. One example is “Die Heimat”, which focuses on regional produce and handcrafted preparation — relaxed dining without frills. If you don’t want a big show but a good meal in a pleasant atmosphere, this is the place.

Michelin dining: Frankfurt at the top

Frankfurt is long since a genuine star city. At the peak of the pyramid is “Lafleur” in the Palmengarten: Andreas Krolik runs the only two-star restaurant in Hesse, also known for its ambitious vegan line alongside the classic cuisine. It sits amid the greenery by the Palm House — a special setting.

Added to that is a whole series of one-star houses (as per the 2025 Michelin Guide), including:

• Erno’s Bistro — an address for fine French cuisine since the 1970s, continuously starred since 1998. Wood panelling, wine bottles, living bistro tradition.
• Seven Swans — known for a consistently pared-back, often plant-focused cuisine on the riverbank.
• Carmelo Greco — upmarket Italian cuisine.
• Sommerfeld — a comparatively young starred house in the Bahnhofsviertel.

If you want to visit a starred restaurant, book well ahead — the good tables are often gone weeks in advance, and some houses only offer set menus in the evening. Lunch menus, by the way, are often the more affordable way into top-end dining.

Market hall: eat like a Frankfurter

For me the most honest place to eat in the city is the Kleinmarkthalle near Konstablerwache. Here Frankfurters buy their groceries — and eat in between right at the stalls: a sausage, fresh fish, cheese, plus a glass of wine upstairs. Lunch here costs around €10 to €15. It’s loud, busy and absolutely authentic. My tip: go at lunchtime, grab a spot at a counter and let yourself drift.

New trends: Levante & co.

The scene keeps moving. One example of the younger currents is “Eighty Nine” in the Kennedy 89 design hotel in Sachsenhausen, which brought the popular Levantine cuisine into the district. Such houses show that Frankfurt doesn’t stop at “apple wine” versus “stars” but has a broad, young middle band of good restaurants.

Vegetarian & vegan: Frankfurt’s green scene

Frankfurt now ranks among the most exciting cities in Germany for plant-based cuisine — and that’s long since no niche but a scene of its own, self-assured, above all in the Nordend, in Bornheim and in the city centre.

• “Kuli Alma” in the Nordend cooks purely vegan with an Israeli-Mediterranean bent — colourful, spicy and anything but food of deprivation.
• “VEVAY” in the city centre has specialised entirely in the vegetarian and vegan line, with creative borrowings from Asian, Arab and American cuisine.
• For something refined: the starred restaurant “Seven Swans” on the riverbank is regarded as one of the best plant-based addresses in the country.

Many classic venues today also naturally have good meat-free dishes on the menu — feel free to ask.

Breakfast & brunch

At the weekend, Frankfurt brunches extensively, and there are plenty of good addresses. “Sunny Side Up”, for instance, serves bowls, homemade pancakes and avocado toast at its Westend and Nordend locations. For a vegetarian-vegan brunch buffet, “Bei Frau Nanna” is worth a visit, laid out at the weekend from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. My tip: popular brunch spots fill up quickly on Saturdays and Sundays — better reserve ahead or come early.

Frankfurt specialities you should try

Wherever you eat, a few local classics belong on your list:

• Green sauce (Grüne Soße): the cold sauce of seven herbs (borage, chervil, cress, parsley, salad burnet, sorrel, chives), usually with egg and jacket potatoes.
• Handkäs mit Musik: sour-milk cheese marinated in vinegar, oil and onions — not for delicate noses, but a must.
• Rippchen with sauerkraut & Frankfurt sausages: hearty classics of Hessian cuisine.
• Frankfurt schnitzel: classically served with green sauce.
• Something sweet: Bethmännchen (marzipan pastries with three almonds) and the Frankfurter Kranz.

With it, of course, a glass of apple wine — or, if you prefer it alcohol-free, a “Süßgespritztes” (apple juice with lemonade).

Reservations, prices & tipping

A few practical things make the restaurant visit run smoothly:

• Reserving: at trendy venues like “Kuli Alma” or “Tonka”, and generally at the weekend, a reservation is advisable; for starred houses, often weeks ahead.
• Prices: in apple-wine taverns and the Kleinmarkthalle a main course usually costs around €10 to €15, in the upmarket mid-range more like €15 to €30, and in starred houses the menus are considerably higher.
• Opening hours: many smaller venues have a closing day (often Monday) — check in advance.
• Tipping: in Germany around 5 to 10 per cent is customary, often rounded up. State the total you want directly when paying.
• Save at lunch: many restaurants, including upmarket ones, offer cheaper lunch menus during the week.

How to find the right venue

So that you don’t end up in the wrong district, here are my rules of thumb:

• Hessian & traditional: Sachsenhausen (apple-wine taverns), away from the noisiest lanes.
• International & buzzy, bar to bar in the evening: the Bahnhofsviertel.
• Down-to-earth & neighbourly: the Nordend and Bornheim.
• Special occasion / Michelin dining: Lafleur, Erno’s Bistro & co. — reserve early.
• Plant-based: the Nordend and city centre (Kuli Alma, VEVAY), refined at Seven Swans.
• Breakfast & brunch: the Westend and Nordend, reserve at the weekend.
• Fast, honest, at lunch: the Kleinmarkthalle.
• Reserving: advisable almost everywhere in popular districts at the weekend. For starred houses, weeks in advance.

Conclusion

Frankfurt eats better than many think. The city combines solid Hessian tradition with a cosmopolitan, young restaurant scene and a surprisingly dense top-end gastronomy. Rather than fixating on a single venue, I’d advise you to use the districts as a guide: one evening Hessian in Sachsenhausen, one in the buzzing Bahnhofsviertel, a midday foray through the Kleinmarkthalle. That way you get to know not only good food but also the very different faces of this city.