The 5 Restaurant Bahnhofsviertel You Can’t Miss in Frankfurt
Frankfurt’s Bahnhofsviertel sits in the literal shadow of the Hauptbahnhof, and for decades that
proximity gave it a reputation built mostly around what happens after dark on Kaiserstraße’s side streets.
The same corridor is also where wave after wave of arrivals — Turkish, South Indian, East African, and
more recently a run of German comfort-food openings — set up kitchens within walking distance of the
platforms, because cheap rent and constant foot traffic from the station made it the obvious place to
start. We went through every restaurant with a Google Business listing in the district and weighted each
one’s rating against how many people actually left it, because a 4.9 from under three thousand reviews and
a 4.6 from over seven thousand are not making the same claim. Five came out clearly ahead, and between them
they cover most of what eating in the Bahnhofsviertel actually means: a late-night café-bar, a heavily
reviewed German grill spot, an Eritrean family kitchen built around Ubuntu hospitality, a South Indian
vegetarian chain outpost, and a Mumbai-themed Indian street-food restaurant — three of the five sitting on
Kaiserstraße itself, within a few hundred metres of each other.
Nekos Café Bar, Münchener Straße
The highest-rated name on this list by a clear margin: Nekos Café Bar,
4.9★ from 2,899 Google reviews. Its own booking page gives away little beyond the name, but the
hours tell the real story — doors open at 5:00 PM and stay open past midnight every night of the week,
running to 4:00 AM on Fridays and Saturdays, the latest close on this list by a wide margin. That makes it
less a restaurant stop on the way somewhere and more the place a Bahnhofsviertel evening in this stretch
actually ends up. Open Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday 5:00 PM to 1:00 AM, Friday and
Saturday 5:00 PM to 4:00 AM, on Münchener Straße a short walk south of Kaiserstraße.
Der Fette Bulle, Kaiserstraße
No name on this list carries more weight of numbers: Der Fette Bulle —
literally “the fat bull” in German — holds 7,520 Google reviews at 4.6★, more than double the
next-closest on this list. Its own site redirects straight to Instagram rather than to a menu page, which
fits a place that seems to run more on foot traffic and word of mouth on Kaiserstraße than on a built-out
web presence. What the numbers alone say plainly: whatever this kitchen sends out, an unusually large
number of people who ate here bothered to rate it, and rated it well. Open daily 11:30 AM to 11:00 PM,
Sunday to 10:00 PM, at Kaiserstraße 73.
Im Herzen Afrikas, Gutleutstraße
The name translates plainly as “In the Heart of Africa,” and Im Herzen
Afrikas builds its whole concept around it: Eritrean family recipes served in a room done out in
clay-wall construction, hand-painted murals and African-inspired lighting, run on an Ubuntu philosophy the
restaurant states directly on its own site — community and mutual respect as the point, not just the
food. Dishes are meant to be shared and scooped up with injera bread rather than eaten off individual
plates, and the kitchen has adapted its traditional recipes to run heavily vegan. 4.7★ from 3,691
reviews on Gutleutstraße, a few minutes’ walk from the Kaiserstraße cluster. Closed Sundays; open 4:00 PM
to 11:00 PM Monday to Friday, from 1:00 PM Saturday.
Saravanaa Bhavan, Kaiserstraße
The Frankfurt outpost of a chain that bills itself, in its own words, as the “World’s No.1 Indian
Vegetarian Restaurant Chain”: Saravanaa Bhavan runs South Indian vegetarian and
vegan cooking — dosas, idlis, filter coffee and full thaali meals — out of an open kitchen on
Kaiserstraße. It’s also the earliest-opening name on this list by some distance, serving from 9:00 AM
daily, which puts it in breakfast-and-thaali territory the rest of this list doesn’t touch. 4.6★ from
5,227 reviews, open every day 9:00 AM to 10:30 PM, at Kaiserstraße 68.
eatDOORI Indian Restaurant, Kaiserstraße
The original location of what has since grown into a multi-city restaurant group: eatDOORI opened here in 2015 built around what it calls an “Indian street
kitchen” concept — copper pipes, window shutters and corrugated metal standing in for the market streets
of Mumbai, split into a bar lounge and a narrow, segmented dining room. The menu runs from 24-hour-marinated
butter chicken and tandoori standards to an unusually deep vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free selection, all
halal-certified. 4.5★ from 3,205 reviews, open daily (Monday to Friday from 11:30 AM, weekends from
noon) to between 10:00 and 10:30 PM, at Kaiserstraße 55.
All five, on the map
The interactive map has every qualifying restaurant we found in Frankfurt’s
Bahnhofsviertel, these five marked and numbered, and a button that hands the walking route between them
straight to Google Maps on your phone.
Getting the most out of a Bahnhofsviertel food crawl
All five of these sit within about ten minutes’ walk of Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof, which makes the district
an easy first or last stop on a trip through the city — landing at FRA and heading straight into town, a
booked transfer from Welcome Pickups takes the guesswork out of
the ride in. A local eSIM from Airalo means Google Maps and transit
apps work the moment you land, useful for finding Gutleutstraße off the main Kaiserstraße strip. Paying in
euros without a foreign transaction fee across five different restaurants in one evening adds up — a Wise card is the simplest fix for that. And if the food crawl is one stop on a
longer Frankfurt visit, Tiqets covers skip-the-line tickets for the
museums along the nearby Museumsufer, so the day isn’t all queueing.
Frequently Asked Questions
What’s the best restaurant in Frankfurt’s Bahnhofsviertel?
By rating weighted against review volume, Nekos Café Bar comes out on top at 4.9★ from 2,899
reviews, though Der Fette Bulle’s 4.6★ from 7,520 reviews represents the largest base of people who
actually rated a meal here. “Best” depends on what you’re after: Nekos for a late-night bar stop, Der Fette
Bulle for sheer weight of reviews on Kaiserstraße.
Are these restaurants close to Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof?
Yes — all five sit in the Bahnhofsviertel, the district immediately around the station, and three of the
five (eatDOORI, Der Fette Bulle, Saravanaa Bhavan) are on Kaiserstraße itself, the main street running out
from the station forecourt.
What cuisines are represented on this list?
It’s a genuinely mixed set: Indian street food at eatDOORI, South Indian vegetarian at Saravanaa Bhavan,
Eritrean East African cooking at Im Herzen Afrikas, and a late-night café-bar at Nekos. Der Fette Bulle’s
own site gives away no menu details beyond a name that translates as “the fat bull.”
Is there a good vegetarian or vegan option on this list?
Saravanaa Bhavan is built entirely around vegetarian and vegan South Indian cooking, and Im Herzen
Afrikas and eatDOORI both state on their own sites that they carry an unusually deep vegan and vegetarian
selection alongside their standard menus.
Is the Bahnhofsviertel safe to walk between these restaurants?
The district has a long-standing reputation tied to its role around the station, and it’s worth knowing
that going in — but the stretch these five sit on, mostly Kaiserstraße itself, is a well-trafficked
commercial strip through the day and early evening. As with any station district, it’s worth checking
current conditions for a late-night walk, especially heading to or from Nekos.
- 1. Nekos Café Bar — Münchener Str. 32, 60329 Frankfurt am Main-Innenstadt I
- 2. Der Fette Bulle — Kaiserstraße 73, 60329 Frankfurt am Main-Innenstadt I
- 3. Im Herzen Afrikas — Gutleutstraße 13, 60329 Frankfurt am Main-Innenstadt I
- 4. Saravanaa Bhavan — Kaiserstraße 68, 60329 Frankfurt am Main
- 5. eatDOORI Indian Restaurant — Kaiserstraße 55, 60329 Frankfurt am Main
