7 Best Restaurants in City Center, Frankfurt

Reminiscent of a traditional coffeehouse, this café has been offering all types of sweets and pastries, along with breakfast, lunch, and dinner since 1915. Open daily, it's on a quiet, tucked-away street that's steps from the main shopping area, Zeil. In warm weather, there's a lovely outdoor garden.

Housed in a former wine cellar that dates from 1893 in one of the alleys off Fressgass, Vinum specializes in regional wines, by the glass or bottle to accompany a regional prix-fixe menu. The burnished brickwork and low lighting adds to the charm. The wine-themed decor includes such items as glass bowls filled with wine corks.

This modern restaurant, bar, and lounge near many of the city's largest banks makes it a natural for business lunches, but it also attracts many young professionals for after-work socializing and dinner. The moderately priced menu of contemporary dishes includes nearly two dozen varieties of pizza.

Frankfurt's Westhafen (West Harbor), once busy and commercial, has been transformed into an upscale neighborhood of apartments, a yacht club, and waterfront restaurants. One of the most chic is Frankfurter Botschaft, with a glass facade and a big terrace overlooking the Main River. The city's elite descend here for business lunches or a cocktail on the terrace at sunset.

The atmosphere is right out of One Thousand and One Nights at this restaurant near the train station, with belly dancers performing every Saturday night and urging patrons to join in. The Middle Eastern menu is largely vegetarian and heavy on garlic, olive oil, and lemon juice. Save room for dessert, either baklava, flaky pastry layered with honey and nuts, or amar eilden, apricot pudding dotted with raisins. Those who are so inclined can retire to the lounge and smoke flavored tobacco from a water pipe.

On the 53rd floor of the skyscraper that houses the Helaba Landesbank Hessen-Thüringen, this popular cocktail bar and high-end restaurant captures unbeatable views through 25-foot floor-to-ceiling windows, from where you can take in all of "Mainhattan". The cuisine is part global and part regional and is served at dinner as a chef's-choice prix-fixe menu ranging from four to seven courses (wine extra). Lunch is an open menu with no minimum, as is the lounge for drinks and bar snacks, which opens at 9 pm. Both the restaurant and the Tower Lounge are open until midnight.

There are few inner-city restaurants that brew their own beer, and the Twelve Apostles is one of the pleasant exceptions. Enjoy homemade pilsners in the dimly lighted, cavernous cellar, and sample traditional international and Croatian dishes.