Frankfurt Food: What to Eat in Germany

What Frankfurt food is known for

The core dishes are a herb sauce, a marinated sour-milk cheese, a pork sausage and an apple wine. Grüne Soße, Handkäs mit Musik, Frankfurter sausage and Apfelwein are the standard entries on any list of Frankfurt specialties. They are not fancy food; most of them are plain, sharp and built for a long table.

What ties them together is acidity. The sauce is packed with herbs and vinegar, the cheese is soured milk under an onion marinade, the sausage is smoked pork, and the Apfelwein is dry and tart rather than sweet. Expect a menu that cuts through fat instead of adding to it, and order accordingly: one sharp dish, one pork dish, one drink.

Grüne Soße: what it is and how it comes to the table

Grüne Soße is a cold sauce of chopped fresh herbs bound with sour cream, yogurt or mayonnaise, sharpened with vinegar and lemon. It is usually served with boiled potatoes and hard-boiled eggs, so the plate reads as a full dish rather than a condiment. The herbs are the point: the classic Frankfurt blend runs to seven, including parsley, chives, chervil, sorrel and borage.

Order it as a main and eat it the way it is served: potatoes and egg dipped into the sauce, not the sauce poured over everything at once. If you see it listed alongside schnitzel or boiled beef, it works as a side too, but the egg-and-potato plate is the version that tells you what the dish is about.

Handkäs mit Musik: the cheese under an onion marinade

Handkäs is a small, round sour-milk cheese from the region, mild and slightly rubbery when fresh, sharper as it ages. Mit Musik means it is dressed with raw onion, vinegar and oil, usually with caraway, and left to sit so the marinade works into the cheese. The name is a joke about the effect of all that raw onion, not a musical accompaniment.

It arrives with bread, often rye, and sometimes butter, and it is eaten cold as a starter or a light meal with Apfelwein. It is not a cheese course to be savored alone; the plate is designed to be shared and to make you thirsty. If you only have room for one cold dish in Frankfurt, this is the more distinctive choice over a green salad.

Frankfurter sausages and the pork classics

The Frankfurter is the local pork sausage, and it is short, thin and smoked rather than the long, plump sausage most visitors picture. That long sausage belongs to Franconia: see Franconian food for the Bratwurst tradition centered on Nuremberg. Frankfurt's version is usually poached and served with bread, mustard or potato salad, and it is a small plate, not a meal in itself.

Beyond the sausage, look for smoked pork with sauerkraut, boiled beef with the green sauce, and a pork cutlet in the plain style you find across Hesse. If you want the southern German comparison, Bavarian food explains the Weißwurst and roast-pork side of the country, while Frankfurter menus stay closer to the Rhineland's sharp, vinegary register.

Apfelwein: what it is and how it is drunk

Apfelwein is fermented apple juice, dry and tart, served in Frankfurt's apple-wine taverns rather than treated as a specialty drink. It is poured into a ribbed glass called a Geripptes, and the traditional serving vessel at a table is a blue-and-gray stoneware jug. Drink it slowly with food; a glass or two alongside a plate of Handkäs is the normal way to spend an evening, and it is strong enough that the meal should outlast the jug.

Ask for a Schoppen if you want a small measure rather than a full glass, and expect a dry cider-like flavor rather than a sweet juice drink. Some taverns serve it with a splash of sparkling water, which softens the acidity; either way, order food first and let the Apfelwein follow.

Where to eat traditional Frankfurt food in and around the old town

The Römerberg old town is the convenient base for traditional dishes, but the surrounding streets and the area around Kleinmarkthalle, the city's covered market, give you more range. Kleinmarkthalle is where Frankfurt food tours tend to start, and it puts you in front of butchers, cheese vendors and prepared food in one building.

For a proper lunch rather than a snack, Ebert's Suppenstube on Große Bockenheimer is the café offshoot of a local butcher and deli, specializing in soups and comfort dishes designed for a fast sit-down meal. It is a lunchtime spot, so plan it as the middle of the day rather than an evening. Maxie Eisen on Münchener Straße takes a different route, serving Jewish classics such as Reubens and pastrami on rye from a kitchen run by local restaurateurs.

If you want vegetables rather than pork, Vevay sits just off Willy-Brandt-Platz across from the Euro sculpture, serving vegan and vegetarian plates, juices and a cake display; head upstairs for a view over the square. None of these are the traditional apple-wine tavern experience, so pick them as a break between heavier meals, not as a substitute for one.

Bakery and café stops: bread, pastries and coffee

Frankfurt's breakfast and coffee stops are where the city's bread culture shows up. Brot und Seine Freunde, a bakery café on Kornmarkt, is a straightforward place for well-made coffee, pastries and small sandwiches. Café Karin, around the corner, runs a larger breakfast menu if you want eggs and a sit-down start rather than a pastry at the counter.

German baking is a subject in its own right, and this city's cafés are a low-risk way in. For the full spread of loaves, rolls and cakes worth knowing before you order, the German regional cuisine guide doubles as a bread primer; in Frankfurt, use the bakery stop as breakfast and the café stop as an afternoon pause.

What to order if you only have one meal in Frankfurt

Order Grüne Soße with potatoes and egg, add a Frankfurter sausage on the side if you are hungry, and drink a glass of Apfelwein. That single plate covers the herb sauce, the pork tradition and the local drink without stretching across three courses. If the weather is warm and you want something cold, swap the sausage for Handkäs mit Musik and keep the Apfelwein.

Skip anything that reads as generic German restaurant food: schnitzel with fries, pretzels and beer are all available and none of them tell you where you are. If you have a second meal, spend it on a bakery breakfast rather than another dinner, and use the money you save on the café cake.

How to pay and what to expect in taverns and bakeries

Apple-wine taverns and traditional restaurants in Frankfurt are straightforward places: sit down, order from the menu and pay at the table when you are finished. Carry some euro cash as a backup alongside a card, since small lunch counters and market stalls are the least likely to take plastic.

Prices are moderate for the traditional dishes, which are plain ingredients cooked simply, and higher around the Römerberg and the market where visitors concentrate. Compare the menu posted at the door before you sit down, since the same plate of Grüne Soße can vary noticeably from one street to the next.

Seasonal notes: herbs in spring, apple wine year-round

Grüne Soße depends on fresh herbs, so its flavor shifts with the season: served in spring and early summer, the bunches are young and the mix is at its fullest.

Apfelwein is made from apples and is available throughout the year, not tied to one season, so a glass works with a cold plate in any month.

Which Frankfurt dish should you start with?

Start with Grüne Soße and potatoes, and add Handkäs mit Musik as a shared starter while you decide about the sausage. That order gives you the city's two most distinctive dishes first and keeps the pork and the Apfelwein for the same table, which is how Frankfurt eats them anyway.

If you would rather understand the rest of the country's cooking, use the German regional cuisine guide to see how Hesse's sharp, vinegary dishes sit next to the Swabian and Bavarian traditions. Then come back to Frankfurt with a short list of three dishes and a bakery breakfast, which is enough for a two-day visit.