Cocktails, wine bars and dives: drinking in Frankfurt for grown-ups.
Cocktail bars, wine bars, dive bars and gastropubs: drinking in Frankfurt for grown-ups.
The Tiny Cup mixes cocktails below Seven Swans in Frankfurt's narrowest house on the Mainkai, the starred kitchen's after-hours sibling and equal in craft.
Signature drink: Seasonal cocktails from the Seven Swans team
Tip: Squeeze in before or after a Seven Swans booking; the seasonal menu leans on the same permaculture farm as the restaurant.
Burbank runs the Roomers hotel's black-lacquered ground floor in Frankfurt, cocktails and Asian-Californian plates on Gutleutstraße until midnight.
Signature drink: Mixology list beside West Coast-Asian plates
Tip: Dinner reservations unlock the adjoining Roomers Bar for the nightcap; Fridays the room shifts from dining to scene by 22:00.
naïv is Frankfurt's craft beer bar of record on Fahrgasse, with rotating taps and a house lager poured nightly until 01:00 to a walk-in crowd.
Signature drink: The Glaabsbräu collaboration lager
Tip: No evening reservations by policy; the taps change weekly, and the bottle shop at number 8 handles the take-home cravings.
YALDY doubles as the Bahnhofsviertel's most relaxed cocktail room in Frankfurt, Bib Gourmand snacks backing the drinks until 02:00 at weekends.
Signature drink: House cocktails beside the natural wine list
Tip: Order food early and drink late; the kitchen's shared plates outclass every other bar menu on the street.
Balalaika packs live music into a candlelit Sachsenhausen room on Schifferstraße, Frankfurt's tiny late bar with a cult following and no closing hurry.
Signature drink: Whatever pairs with a singalong at 01:00
Tip: Come after the taverns close; the room holds a few dozen people and the music is whatever the night produces.
Klapper 33 is the Klappergasse Kneipe that outlasts every Frankfurt tavern night, pouring until 05:00 at the weekend, cash in hand and jukebox on.
Signature drink: A late beer among the last standing
Tip: The crowd is whoever survived Sachsenhausen's evening; cash, smoke and no pretensions whatsoever.
Rote Bar keeps a red-velvet cocktail salon above Frankfurt's Mainkai, nightly from 20:00, three doors from the narrowest house in town at Mainkai 4.
Signature drink: Classic cocktails in a red-velvet salon
Tip: It opens when the riverbank empties; the four-hour nightly window keeps the room civilised rather than chaotic.
Bar Shuka brings Tel Aviv nights to Frankfurt's Niddastraße, mezze and arak cocktails running to midnight in the Bahnhofsviertel every night.
Signature drink: Arak cocktails with Tel Aviv-style mezze
Tip: Evenings are the point; the same room does hotel breakfast by day, so do not judge it before 19:00.
Plank runs Elbestraße from morning espresso to 02:00 cocktails, the Bahnhofsviertel's all-day room that helped gentrify the block one bar at a time.
Signature drink: Espresso by day, house cocktails after dark
Tip: Daytime it is a cafe with laptops; by 22:00 the same counter is one of the street's most reliable bars.
Chinaski blurs bar into club opposite the Alte Oper on Bockenheimer Landstraße, open 22:00 to 03:00 or 04:00 late in the week for the dance-inclined.
Signature drink: Late drinks before the dancefloor takes over
Tip: It fills after the Opernplatz bars close; Thursday keeps the music-to-crowd ratio at its best.
O'Reilly's pours pints opposite Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof, the Irish pub every arriving traveller finds within minutes of stepping off a train.
Signature drink: A properly settled pint of stout
Tip: Match days pack it beyond reason; otherwise it is the softest landing between a delayed train and a hotel check-in.
Harvey's turns from Nordend brunch room into a proper corner bar by evening, with drinks poured until 01:00 on Bornheimer Landstraße in Frankfurt.
Signature drink: Aperol on the wraparound terrace
Tip: The terrace at golden hour is the draw; inside stays calm enough for actual conversation even on weekends.
Café Maingold slides into bar mode after dark at Zeil 1, Frankfurt's low-lit room between the shopping mile and the Innenstadt bars proper, till late.
Signature drink: Spritz at the quiet end of the Zeil
Tip: It is the meeting point before deciding on the real destination, and often the night stays right there until 01:00.
Café Größenwahn has been the Nordend's talking bar since 1978, wine and daily plates on a Frankfurt corner that never modernised on purpose.
Signature drink: House wine amid four decades of Nordend debate
Tip: Arrive at 16:00 for a table and stay through dinner; the room's history as a queer and activist hub is the atmosphere.
Ebbelwoi Unser is the apfelwein tavern that drinks like a bar, Sachsenhausen's young crowd holding tables in Frankfurt until 01:00 most nights.
Signature drink: A Bembel of Ebbelwoi, pure or gespritzt
Tip: Order the Bembel and settle in; this is the tavern to treat as a night out rather than a dinner stop.
GRETA OTO's bar pours pisco and Latin American cocktails from 10:00 daily on Thurn-und-Taxis-Platz, central Frankfurt's easiest good drink before dinner.
Signature drink: Pisco sour at the all-day bar
Tip: The bar takes walk-ins when the dining room is fully booked; a ceviche at the counter is a complete evening in miniature.
OOSTEN's terrace under the old harbour crane doubles as Frankfurt's best riverside drinks deck, skyline sundowners over the Main every clear evening.
Signature drink: A sundowner on the harbour-crane terrace
Tip: Drinks-only guests do best on the upper deck; time it for the hour before sunset and let the ECB tower do the lighting.
Wunderbar is Höchst's bar as well as its cafe, pouring until midnight among half-timbered lanes on Frankfurt's western edge, last orders near midnight.
Signature drink: An evening beer in Höchst's old town
Tip: After the kitchen closes at 21:00 the front room becomes the district's living room; last S-Bahn back runs well past midnight.