Selecting Frankfurt's best: our five steps
How Best Frankfurt's editors build each ranking: every district, a reputation built over years, confirmed details, quality of service and trade-fair weeks.
Frankfurt is easy to visit and harder to know. Many people arrive for a trade fair or a new job and have little time to learn which addresses deserve their evening or their trust. Our rankings are meant to shorten that learning curve, and each one is built in the same five steps. They apply equally to a tavern in Sachsenhausen and a tax adviser in the Westend.
Covering the districts, not just the centre
We look across all of Frankfurt for each category: the Innenstadt and Westend, but also Sachsenhausen, Bornheim, Nordend, Bockenheim, Gallus and further out. Plenty of Frankfurt's most reliable addresses are tucked into quiet residential streets, far from the Zeil and the bank towers.
A good name, built over time
We favour businesses that Frankfurters and long-term residents have trusted for years, where customers come back, recommend them to colleagues and single out the same strengths year after year. A newly opened place may be excellent, but it needs time to show it can stay that way.
Confirmed details
Nothing is published until we have confirmed that the business operates at the address shown, that it can be reached by telephone or online, and that its opening hours, including rest days and holiday closures, are up to date. Public holidays in Hesse are taken into account.
Quality and service
Each kind of business must get different things right. A tavern should serve proper apple wine and honest food, a hotel should be clean, quiet and well placed, a clinic should be accessible and clear in its explanations. Steady, reliable work counts for more than a smart interior.
Holding up in trade-fair weeks
When a major fair is on at the Messe, hotels fill up and restaurants near the exhibition grounds are stretched. We favour businesses whose standards hold in those busy weeks as well as in quiet ones, because that is when many of our readers need them most.
Updating the guide
Businesses open, move and close in Frankfurt as in any city, so every ranking is reviewed on a regular cycle. If you spot an error or know of an address that belongs in the guide, email info@bestfrankfurt.com. Notes from residents are particularly valuable to us, since they often hear of a change first.