Frankfurt/Main (Germany) > Reviews > Frankfurt am Main restaurants not expensive

Author's product rating:   

Advantages:	"Restaurants :  unhurried,  relaxing, inexpensive, historical, even medievial"  .  .  .  .  "Where?"  .  .  .   "In Frankfurt am Main . "  .  .  .  .   "Never  !  who do you take me for, save your stupid jokes for someone else  ! "
Disadvantages:	"Are you kidding? This can ` t be  !  .  .  .  Frankfurt is a financial center, trade fare, traffic focus, airport and business place .  Nix da medievial  !  !  "

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Frankfurt am Main (660.000 inhabitants) is not known for being a definite tourist attraction like Vienna or Munich. Frankfurt is often regarded in Germany only as a business centre and transit focus. It could be more for the visitior: e.g. modern playful architecture, history, museums, art, festivals and cultural events.

The "expensive" reputation of Frankfurt one can get just on first sight. Because of the big events with thousands of people attending like "Museums-Ufer-Fest" with a 0,2 l coke costing more than 3.00 Euro. But there we won't go ...
Restaurants in Frankfurt are mostly quite good in value. Such as:

TIERRA VERDE (appendix 6, right picture) _______________

Ambience of the restaurant / surrounding environment:
Situated in the popular (weekend / after work) shopping mile of the Berger Straße, a jovial alternative to the central Zeil with its big shopping centers. Fortunately Berger Strasse is not too much frequented with traffic, but nevertheless not as quiet as the other Bornheim restaurants on side roads like "Café Klatsch" or "Lebensfreude Pur". Depending on your personal circumstances, you may regard "Tierra Verde" as a qualified Spanish Fast Food Restaunt. Or one can use it (I would recommend the outdoor tables) for a confortable meal, while reading a book for leisure time after work and drinking a glass of Spanish Wine. At close vicinity there is a Chinese Park (rare in Germany), i.e. the "Bethmann Park" near "Merianplatz".

Food and Drink:
SPANISH KITCHEN with some North-African enrichments (due to the cook). The "Green Earth" is in particular very inexpensive, not a matter of course for all Spanish Restaurants in the City. All plates are served with Pita bread. Meal as bread are heated together in the wood-stone-oven in less than 5 minutes. A big selection of Tapas like big prawns & salad (5,50 €), mussels with herbs, garlic and sauce (4,00 €), potted sheeps-milk-cheese (3,50 €), spit-roasted chicken (5,00 €). Grilled: prawns / shrimps (6,00 €); empanadillas; rolled bread filled with spiced lamb (6,00 €) etc.

Fresh-squeezed fruit juice, wine (Spain, France, Germany), beer, koffee, ...

Location:
Tierra Verde, Berger Straße 116, Phone 0 69 - 48 00 60 35. Opening times: Monday to Friday 8.00 am - 11.00 pm, Saturday and Sunday 9.00 am - 11.00 pm.

Public transportation:
Tube U 4, pls step out "Höhenstraße" (walking distance 2 minutes) or "Merianplatz" ( walking distance 5 minutes).

MOSAIK JAZZ BAR (appendix 3, right picture) _______________

Ambience of the restaurant / environment:
Bornheim. Situated at the corner of the less traveled streets Freiligrath- / Fechenheimer Straße. The surrounding over there give the impression that one is midst an old fashioned residential quarter. Here a Jazz bar would not particularily be assumed. Though !
Jazz has a tradition in Frankfurt. As one looks back until the twenties with its Jazz Clubs and Groups. In the Fifties Frankfurt had launched an annual jazz festival to this day. If you keep in mind that Frankfurt is a rather modest small big city, there is an overproportional share of Jazz Clubs and even normal Kneipen playing Jazz all night.
By the way: Even the selection of Jazz CDs in "Saturn Hansa" (U 4 "Höhenstrasse") or in the central Library (Zeil 33, "Konstablerwache") is quite remarkable.

The friendly senior aged proprietor came once from Tunesia and is an accomplished expert on old and contemporary Jazz. This can be heard inside "Mosaik" all day / night long in decent sound intensity. The rooms are furnished superb and modern: unique lamps and other art items in an abstract formal design, several picture frames with big photo-protraits of John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Billy Holiday among others.
Live concerts take place at "Mosaik Jazz Bar" almost every weekend and sometimes more often, e.g. Jimmy Woode. The tiny beer-garden-cutie outside (for crowds of 10 - 15 people is surrounded by hedges and little trees.

Food and Drink:
INTERNATIONAL KITCHEN for the little and medium hunger: Pumpkin soup with crème fraîche & baguette 3,50 €, Tortilla-wraps filled with minced meat, cheese and vegetables 5,90 € ... SPAIN TAPAS, several: 6,90 €. Noodles with basilicum / pesto-sauce (vampires pls take care of the gartic!) 7,90 €.

As I am not a huge fan of the local Frankfurt beer (Römer, Binding: not bad, but ...) I recognize with rapture sorts "from outside" like Warsteiner and Prinzregent Ludwig (0,5 litre 3,30 €). 22 different white- and red wines, also cocktails like Mojito are beloved by the (tribal as incidental) visitors. For those (Englishmen / -women?) who drink tea in preference to coffee: Darjeeling, Assam, Green Tea and (fresh) Peppermint, each teapot about 2,30 €.

BOOTSHAUS DREYER (appendix picture 1) _____________

Ambience of the restaurant / surrounding environment:
A boat on the riverside of Sachsenhausen. From there one has a beautiful view on the river and it's sights, the Old Town, the gothic Cathedral (Dom) and the Skyline mirroring in the river. I think even the inhabitants do not recognize that this is the only huge Skyline in Europe.

A rest in this boat-restaurant is not a bad way to see a few sights when you are tired of walking. If you like to rent a paddle- or pedalboat (up to 4 people): One hour boat ride costs 12 €.

Food and Drink:
GERMAN KITCHEN for the SMALL HUNGER (for instance cheese cubes with peperoni and green olives 3,50 €, beef sausage & potato salad 3,50 €), breakfast, cakes, (apple strudel with cream 2,50 €), wheat-beer 0,5 l 3,50 €, apple wine 0,5 litre 3,00 €.

Location:
"Bootshaus Dreyer am Eisernen Steg", Schaumainkai ohne Nummer. Phone 0 69 - 62 19 35. Opening Hours: Monday - Sunday 11.00 am - 11.00 pm.

Public transportation:
The tube U4 or U5, get out at "Römer", cross Römer-Platz, take the small Fahrtor (street) which will lead you to the bridge "Eiserner Steg", cross it and at the end of the iron bridge you will see on the right side the boat-restaurant.

The inhabitants of Frankfurt use for a location like this the nickname "Dribb-de Bach" (beyond the river / on the other Sachsenhausen-side of the Main).

KLOSTERHOF (appendix picture 4) ______________________

Food and Drink:
GERMAN MONASTERY KITCHEN, diversified rich menu with big portions. Particularly beloved are the steaks and shreds (e.g. Swiss cream steak or the Trappistenschnitzel (10.80 € each ), old recipes (midth a modern city) of the Benedictian Cloister of Tuzing. Many of the plates originate from this monastery tradition.
INTERNATIONAL PLATES too, like Poularde-chest in sauce mustarde & garlic (10.20 €) a prescription of the Sister / chief nun of a Toulousian Cloister. Or Italian Penne with salmon in cream dill sauce (9.30 €)
Apple-wine (the famous sour Frankfurt-cidre you can drink only in Frankfurt restaurants, not at all common in other german cities) fresh from the barrel (1 litre "Bembel" / blue stone jug costs 6.00 €. Or the Cloister black beer "Kloster Pils" (0.5 litre 3.40 €). The wines (german and south-european regions, in barrels too) originate mostly from the year 1999 and change upon season. The harsh monastery liqueur of the abbey St. Gilgen will be healthy and tasty at the end of the meal.

Ambience of the restaurant / surrounding environment:

In former centuries the monks / nuns here were known for giving food for travellers crossing through Frankfurt. Beautifully situated in the old town, the restaurant / beer-garden "Klosterhof" belongs (since 1936) to the "Carmelite Cloister". The inner rooms are decorated with monestary furniture, paintings and art items.
Cosiness might be a synonym for the shady beer garden with a "roof" of trees, bushes and flowers.
Opposite from "Klosterhof" one can find the "Künstlerkeller" and a theater "Die Schmiere". The view of 2 scyscrapers in direct proximity (the BfG-tower and the Commerzbank - allegedly the highest scyscraper of Europe) forms a delightful contrast to the medieval atmosphere of the "Frankfurter Altstadt". I honestly have the feeling, that the architecture from different centuries is not biting (eating?) each other, appeals to me as a harmonic contrast. The nearby Bethmannstrasse is shaped by the northern building of the city hall. All in red sandstone: with some allegoric figures of the Greek / Roman mythology, and the Seufzerbrücke crossing the Bethmannstraße ("Sigh-Bridge", the usual understatement of Frankfurt yields for 1 second a meglomaniac joke. By comparision with Venice, forgive the little pun *hihi*).
If you go for a three-minute walk into the other direction ... then you will cross the Mercedes Benz house (with the turning electrified star) at the end of the Kaiserstrasse: one of the first modern business buildings of the fifties, when the world seemed young, hopeful and fresh. In bold and playful architecture, standing in sharp contrast to the somewhat simple design of the plain Bauhaus-style of the twenties. That Mercedes Benz-house and the Hotel "Frankfurter Hof" in opposite ... has been for many years the master place for the noble prostitute Rosemarie Nitribitt and her Benz-Coupé parking over there. The Nitribit-assassination could never be clarified.

Location:
Weissfrauensstraße 3, Phone.: 0 69 - 91 39 90 00, Opening Hours: Monday - Friday 11.30 am to 1.00 am, Saturday & Sunday 17.00 pm - 1.00 am, the kitchen is open until midnight.

Public transportation:
Tube U 4 or 5, step out "Willi-Brandt-Platz", several Parkhouses nearby. The restaurant has also the reputation of being family and kid-friendly.

CAFÈ KLATSCH (appendix 3, left picture)__________________

Ambience of the restaurant / surrounding environment:
In the heart of the borough Bornheim. At 3 minutes by foot from the central meeting point Bornheim-Mittel / "Uhrtürmchen" ("cute clock tower little" ?). It is a rather strange custom in Frankfurt, that restaurants (with a big choice of meals) are very often called "Café". "
This restaurant "Coffee-Bar Gossip" has an interior with a lot of exotic lamps and low-lain asian-like tables. Artists of Frankfurt expose their paintings in regularly change. Also an outside part on the (little traveled) street with tables and sunshades.
On first sight "Café Klatsch" seemed to me like a student's restaurant, but secondsight the crowd is rather mixed.
An art gallery with a big selection of lamps (the lamp-light shining all night) is also part of the restaurant (Gallery "Nebenraum". Phone 0 69 - 490 97 09).

Food and Drink:
Kitchen of INDONESIA, (Nasi Goreng, Gado Gado, Bami Goreng - 6,60 € each) prepared by an Asian cook. INTERNATIONAL standard plates like Chili con Carne (5,40 €), Italian Pasta or vegetable rolls. 12 different kinds of BREAKFAST to choose from 2,50 Euro up to 10 Euro. The milk coffee is greatly appreciated, various sorts of beer and wine. A happy hour from 7.00 pm - 10.00 pm is shaking reduced Cocktails.

Location:
Mainkurstrasse 29, Phone 0 69 - 4 90 97 09. Opening Hours: Monday - Sunday 10.00 am - 1.00 am

Public transportation:
Tube U4 (or bus lines 34, 38, 43), get out at "Bornheim Mitte"

FICHTEKRÄNZI (appendix 5, right picture) _________________

Ambience of the restaurant / surrounding environment:
Situated close to the beloved Alt-Sachsenhausen "Ausgeh-Borough", to the corner of a really quiet street. The garden is calm in the shadow of old sycamores-trees, fenced with the wood of barrels.
The inner rooms are Biedermeier-style, decorated with a lot of cosy paintings à la Spitzweg. The Fichtekränzi ("little sprude wreath") has been established in 1849.
The service here is more friendly in comparision with the larger public apple-wine halls. Many inhabitants of Frankfurt (including myself) avoid the bigger apple-wine halls like Wagner because of the fact, that the service there is mostly unkind: "Always overworked, having no time, no interest for anybody, no time to explain or to hear ..." But nevertheless having the time to tell everyone everyday that they are overworked and the rest of Frankfurt is doing nothing at all, just them. *tztz* / *cough cough*.
But that misbehaviour you won`t find here and fortunately you won`t find it in the most other places of the town.

Food and Drink:
GERMAN KITCHEN for the small hunger (Sachensenhaeuser creamed cheese 4,90 €; boiled beef sausage, sauerkraut, bread 4,00 €) ... and the big hunger (grilled tartar with fried potatoes and salad 10,00 €; pickled loin of pork, boiled or grilled, sauerkraut, bread 7,50 €; medallions of pork with green pepper sauce, fried potatoes and vegetables 12,50 €; ...)

APPLE WINE, SELF-MADE 0,5 l 3,50 €. Also different sorts of beer, fresh from the tap. (Fränkisches Landbier 0,5 l 3,50 €) Open Wines: Spain, Italy, vins d'Alsace, approx. 3,20 € (0,2 l).

Location:
Sachsenhausen is an old town (part of Frankfurt now) with a history far back to the 12th century. Apfelwein-Wirtschaft Fichtekränzi, Wallstraße 5. Phone 0 69 - 61 27 78. Opening hours: every day from 5.00 pm to 12.00 pm, the kitchen is open until 11.30 pm and the garden until 11.00 pm.

Public transportation:
Take any S-Bahn line, get out at "Lokalbahnhof"; or the tube U 1, 2, 3 - step out "Schweizer Straße"; or bus line 30, 36 getting out "Affentorplatz". By car: Parkhouse "Walter-Kolb-Strasse". Generally, in Frankfurt I would recommend to use the excellent public transport system and not a car. By the way, Frankfurt is a small "big-City", most locations in the center (and even beyond) can be reached easily by foot / looking around.

LORSBACHER THAL (appendix 5, left picture) ____________

Ambience of the restaurant / surrounding environment:
"The valley of Lorsbach" is situated quietly in the heart and center of Alt-Sachsenhausen, on the "Ritter Gasse", the street with its famous wall painting of the two cats. The crowd is a mixture: native people, "Eingeplackte" (joke expression for German visitors / inhabitants from other cities, in a city where more than 50 % of the population come from other parts of Germany *g*), and tourists.
The snugly garden offers relaxation and shade with its sycamores trees and green roof made out of plants and flowers. This apple wine pub, founded in 1896 provides sometimes traditional music performances, mostly choirs for Sundays.

Food and Drink:
TRADITIONAL HESSIAN KITCHEN for the small and medium hunger. For instance boiled or grilled salted pork chops with sauerkraut and mashed potatoes (8,80 €), Hessian potatoe soup (3,00 €), local ("hand"-) cheese with onion dressing, bread and butter (2,50 €), Swiss style cold cut sausage-salad (6,80 €)

Beverage: The apple wine is drunk here out of a glass of 0,3 litre. Instead of the otherwise usual glasses "small" 0.25 and "big" 0.5 l.

Location:
"Lorsbacher Thal - Äppelwoi Wirtschaft", Grosse Rittergasse 49 - 51. Phone 0 69 - 61 64 59

Public transportation:
take any "S-Bahn" and get out "Lokalbahnhof"; or the tubes U 1, 2 , 3 stepping out at "Südbahnhof", than a few-minutes walk by foot; or the tram (a little bit nearer) stepping out "Frankensteiner Platz". Opening times: Mo - Sa 4.00 pm - midnight, Sundays and holidays 12.00 pm - 23.00 pm.

IN BRIEF:
SOME OTHER FRANKFURT RESTAURANTS I would recommend as tasty and good valued.

ASIA-HALONG (CHINESE, THAI): Borough Innenstadt, Duesseldorfer Str. 13, Tube U 4, 5 or S-Bahn, get out "Hauptbahnhof".

IMBISS JADE (ASIAN CUISINE): Borough Innenstadt, Moselstr. 18, Phone: 0 69 - 24 27 99 86, S-Bahn / U 4, 5, or Trams "Hauptbahnhof".

INDIGO (INDIAN KITCHEN): Borough Innenstadt, Taunusstr. 17, Phone: 0 69 - 23 39 83, S-Bahn / U 4, 5, or Trams "Hauptbahnhof".

O REILLY'S (IRISH PUB): Borough Innenstadt, Am Hauptbahnhof 4, Phone 0 69 - 26 48 78 78, S-Bahn, Trams or Tube U 4, 5 "Hauptbahnhof".

KÜNSTLER-KELLER, Borough Innenstadt, (GERMAN AND INTL. KITCHEN), huge rooms and a beer garden, Seckbächer Gasse 4. Phone 0 69 - 29 22 42. Tube U 4 or 5, step out "Willi-Brandt-Platz", several Parkhouses nearby.

LALIBELA (AFRICAN KITCHEN): Borough Innenstadt, Klingerstr. 2-4, Phone: 0 69 - 29 38 31, Tube 4, 5, 6, 7 or any S-Bahn "Konstabler Wache".

RUCOLA (ITALIAN KITCHEN, Trattoria): Borough Bornheim, Berger Str. 15, Phone 0 69 - 40 59 06 89, Tube U 4 "Merianplatz".

EL PACIFICO (MEXICAN FOOD): Borough Bornheim, Sandweg 79, tube U 4 "Merianplatz".

AM UHRTÜRMCHEN: (TURKISH CUISINE): Borough BORNHEIM, Berger Str. 185, Phone 0 69 - 4 69 30 62. Tube U 4, get out "Bornheim Mitte"

ASIA SNACK, Saalburgstr. 45, Phone 0 69 - 40 59 34 34, Tube U 4 "Bornheim Mitte)

BUCHWALD (cozi quiet APPLE WINE-garden and old fashioned inner rooms). Self-made cider with other genuine fruit essences like sloe or mistletoe. Best cider in town, I think. Borough Bornheim, Buchwaldstr. 22a, Phone 0 69 - 46 00 32 72, Tuesday - Sunday 5.00 pm - 1.00 am, Tube U 4 "Seckbacher Landstrasse", Bus line 38, get out "Panoramabad"

DA FRANCO (Pizzeria ITALIAN TRATTORIA): Borough Bornheim, Saalburgstr. 41, Phone: 0 69 - 45 95 67, Tube U 4 "Bornheim Mitte". According to my Italian employer one of the best Italian good valued restaurants in town.

WEISSE LILIE (SPANISH and diversified INTL. KITCHEN), Berger Strasse 275, Borough Bornheim. Phone 0 69 - 45 38 60. They have a tasty Paella e.g.

A TASTE OF BRITAIN (homesick?) BRITISH SHOP, e.g. with those marvellous vinegar Chips ... Borough Nordend, Oeder Weg 34, Phone 0 69 - 95 92 94 74, Tube 1, 2 3 "Eschenheimer Tor" http://www.a-taste-of-britain.de/

AMIR SANDWICH (LEBANESE FOOD): Borough Sachsenhausen, Allerheiligentor 2-4, Phone 0 69 - 29 30 67. Any S-Bahn, "Lokalbahnhof"

FILMMUSEUM (INTERNATIONAL KITCHEN): Borough Sachsenhausen, Schaumainkai 41, Tube U 1, 2 , 3 "Schweizer Strasse"

DR. FLOTTE (INTERNATIONAL and GERMAN KÜCHE): Borough Bockenheim, Gräfstr.87, Phone 0 69 - 70 45 95. Tube U 6, 7 or Tramline 16 "Bockenheimer Warte"

CAFE LAUMER (GERMAN, INTERNATIONAL KITCHEN, CAKES): Borough Bockenheim, Bockenheimer Landstraße 67, Phone: 0 69 - 72 79 12, Tube U 6, 7 "Westend"

OBERSCHWEINSTIEGE (FISH, GAME, DEER or RABBIT from the woods). Borough Neu-Isenburg, midths in the woods, Oberschweinstiegeschneise 65. Phone: 0 69 - 68 48 88. Tram 14 (20 minutes ride), get out "Oberschweinstiege".  

Pictures for the review

Display pictures

Bootshaus Dreyer (Sachsenhausen - Eiserner Steg) - have a look at the old town and the skyline