Vegan Breakfast in Frankfurt: The Best Cafés & Brunch Spots

When I first tried to eat a vegan breakfast in Frankfurt, a good ten years ago, the choice basically came down to black coffee and the hope that the jam contained no gelatine. That has changed completely. Today, in my own neighbourhood — the Nordend — I can get scrambled tofu with turmeric, a creamy oat-milk flat white at no extra charge, and a slice of chocolate cake that nobody would ever guess contains neither egg nor butter, all in a single morning. Frankfurt has grown up when it comes to plant-based breakfast. And because this scene turns over faster than any other in the city — places open, move and close again — I’m passing on the addresses that have proved themselves for me over the years: sorted by district, with what I actually order at each.

How plant-based Frankfurt has become

Frankfurt is an international city with a curious food culture, and you notice that especially at breakfast. Oat, soy or almond drink in your coffee has long been standard — and in more and more cafés it now comes at no surcharge, which I read as a small but honest sign that plant-based here is no longer treated as a special request. Perhaps the clearest measure of how far things have come: in 2026 a fully vegan butcher opened on Leipziger Straße in Bockenheim. At number 49, two brothers sell sausage, cold-cut and cheese alternatives made from soy, seitan and pea protein, complete with a hot counter serving currywurst and Leberkäs rolls — all without a single animal product.

The most interesting breakfast addresses lie in the residential districts, not in the banking quarter: in the Nordend, in Bornheim, in Bockenheim and around the city centre. Some places are entirely vegetarian or fully vegan, others have a mixed menu on which the plant-based dishes are clearly marked. If you want a broader overview of Frankfurt’s breakfast and brunch culture, you’ll find it in my big café guide to breakfast and brunch — this piece stays deliberately with the purely plant-based.

Nordend: bowls, pancakes — and an Israeli Sunday brunch

My first address is Sunny Side Up at Gluckstraße 21. The café is one hundred per cent vegetarian, with a large number of vegan and gluten-free dishes and mostly free of refined sugar — which sounds like doing without and tastes like the opposite. Breakfast runs all morning here: superfood bowls, creamy porridge, fluffy pancakes and filled sandwiches, alongside specialty coffee, matcha specials and freshly pressed juices. Ask for the vegan versions and you can have almost everything plant-based. Sunny Side Up now has three branches in the city — besides the Nordend, one in the Westend (Bockenheimer Landstraße 9) and one in Sachsenhausen (Hans-Thoma-Straße 1). It opens daily from morning, with the hot kitchen ending in the early afternoon (as of 2026).

A few streets away, at Zum-Jungen-Straße 10, is Kuli Alma — a fully vegan Israeli restaurant that I love above all for its Sunday brunch. Hummus so creamy you don’t miss the egg from the breakfast table at all, plus falafel, sabich, warm flatbread and salads in little bowls. During the week Kuli Alma is more of a lunch and dinner spot, but on Sundays it turns into a long, sociable breakfast — come hungry and take your time.

Bornheim: where even the cake is vegan

Bornheim, around the Berger Straße, is for me the heart of Frankfurt’s café culture, and it’s a particularly good place to breakfast plant-based. The youngest of my favourites is Café Wolke at Berger Straße 253, on the upper stretch of the street. The menu is vegetarian-vegan, the cakes are without exception vegan, and milk alternatives cost nothing extra. It’s open Wednesday to Sunday, with Monday and Tuesday as rest days (as of 2026) — a mistake I’ve made once and would like to spare you.

Just around the corner, at Eichwaldstraße 2, sits Morcolade, a café with its own bakery. There’s at least one vegan cake in the display every day, and the breakfast menu runs from vegan shakshuka through sabich burgers and hummus to the Tel-Aviv-inspired “TLV” rolls. Because they bake in-house, the bread is a real argument in itself — and Morcolade is one of the few cafés in the district to open early and stay open through the weekday.

A little further north, by the Bornheim cemetery at Dortelweiler Straße 87, hides Café Menthe — for me the loveliest retreat on this list. It’s attached to a plant shop and feels like a leafy conservatory. The kitchen is vegetarian with a strong vegan focus: a vegan breakfast with fresh spreads, porridge with banana or a power bowl, plus vegan cakes such as a moist apple crumble. If you’re going to stroll along the Berger Straße after breakfast anyway, my walk through Bornheim and the Berger Straße makes a natural follow-on.

City centre and Bockenheim: breakfast between the Zeil and the university

If you want to eat plant-based centrally, between two rounds of shopping on the Zeil, Roseli at Weißadlergasse 9 is a good bet — just a few steps from the Hauptwache. The café carries a large selection of vegan and gluten-free breakfast and lunch dishes as well as homemade cakes, and the quiet terrace in the narrow lane is a little oasis in the middle of the bustle. It’s open daily, Sundays included.

In Bockenheim, the university district, I like Fridas Café at Leipziger Straße 108. The international breakfast is served tapas-style here, in lots of small bowls, so you can taste your way across the menu — vegetarian and vegan options included. And when I want something quick and hearty, I pick up a warm roll to go a few doors along, at the fully vegan butcher on Leipziger Straße 49 mentioned earlier. Not a classic sit-down café breakfast, but a very Frankfurt way to start the morning plant-based.

What I order — and what makes a good vegan breakfast

A plant-based breakfast is colourful and anything but going without. These are the things I order again and again, and you’ll find them in one form or another on the menus of the places above:

• Scrambled tofu: the plant-based answer to scrambled eggs, turmeric for colour and often with vegetables and kala namak, the black salt that lends that faintly eggy taste.
• Avocado toast: best on good sourdough, with tomatoes, sprouts and a scatter of seeds.
• Pancakes and French toast: without egg and milk, made instead with plant drink, maple syrup and fresh fruit.
• Bowls, porridge and overnight oats: oats with fruit, nuts and seeds — filling without being heavy.
• Shakshuka and sabich: the hearty, Middle-Eastern-leaning contingent, which in Frankfurt benefits from a strong Israeli influence.
• Vegan pastries and cakes: from a vegan croissant to chocolate cake — often the most honest test of how serious a café really is.
• Coffee with a plant drink: oat, soy or almond, and in the good places at no extra charge.

If you’re drawn to the Middle-Eastern branch — shakshuka, hummus, mezze in the morning — I’d also point you to Turkish breakfast in Frankfurt; much of it can be ordered plant-based with no trouble at all.

Weekends: brunch with time to spare

When I have real time on a Saturday or Sunday, I like to head over to the Ostend to Bei Frau Nanna at Ernst-Achilles-Platz 3, just a few steps from the Ostbahnhof. The vegetarian-vegan brunch buffet is laid out at weekends and on public holidays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and costs €25.90 per person (children up to 11 pay €13.90, under-6s eat free; as of 2026). There are vegan waffles and pancakes, fresh croissants, creamy hummus, shakshuka and, alongside, orange juice and a plant-based cappuccino — all plant-based, with nothing to watch out for. For buffets and popular brunch cafés at the weekend the same rule applies: book if you can, otherwise you’ll be in the queue by eleven on a Saturday.

The second weekend classic is, as mentioned, the Sunday brunch at Kuli Alma — the more sociable, more savoury option if you’re leaning towards hummus rather than pancakes.

My vegan breakfast Saturday

When friends from out of town ask me what a perfect plant-based breakfast morning looks like, I usually send them on this loop: start early at Sunny Side Up in the Nordend, while the bowls are still being made in peace and before the first rush. Then wander over and up the Berger Straße into Bornheim — the walk alone is a pleasure. There, treat yourself to a second coffee and a slice of vegan cake at Café Wolke, or pick up fresh pastries at Morcolade. If you still fancy something green that morning, round it off in the conservatory of Café Menthe. And when there’s really plenty of time, swap the whole thing for the long weekend brunch at Bei Frau Nanna — though you won’t need much else for the rest of the day after that.

What pleases me most about Frankfurt’s plant-based breakfast scene is exactly this matter-of-factness: nobody gives you a funny look for asking for oat drink any more, and the vegan cakes are often the best ones in the case. Because the scene keeps moving, do check current opening hours before making a special trip — the small places in particular have fixed rest days. Otherwise the rule is simple: just go, take your time, and let yourself be surprised by how good a morning entirely without animal products can taste.