best cake… kuchen
Bitter & Zart (pictured above)
| Braubachstraße 14 | Innenstadt |
This chocolaterie and café is one of the cutest places I know in Frankfurt – pastel green walls are covered with the prettiest decoupage pictures. The shop sells all things chocolate; next door the café serves beautiful and delicious cakes plus your choice of drink. My favourite is their hot chocolate, which is either served dark, unsweetened and thickly gloopy, or with milk for a milder flavour. Have it unsweetened so you can use their flavoured sugars (violet, rose, citron, spice) to personalise it. Be aware that although the café is open on a Sunday, the shop is not and it closes at 1600 on Saturday (earlier than the café ).
Caféhaus Siesmayer
| Siesmayerstraße 59 | Westend |
This café restaurant overlooks Frankfurt’s Palmengarten and draws on the tradition of Viennese coffee houses, serving German confectionary and French patisserie. This is a place where you can choose from a wide selection of beautiful and delicious sweet treats - I like the fruity options but the sachertorte also gets good reviews. The view into the Palmengarten is beautiful and there is plenty of seating inside and out. The downsides are that it is almost always busy (they do take reservations – try telephoning if you can’t get a spot online as they can often fit you in) and service can be (extremely!) slow. Alterntively, choose your cake to take away; they also serve hot meals.
Iimori
| Braubachstraße 24 | Innenstadt |
A few doors down from Bitter & Zart and near to Frankfurt’s cathedral, this lauded French-Japanese patisserie and restaurant is cute and kitsch, with mismatched furniture, pretty wallpaper and a great selection of French cakes, pastries and breads. I like their coffee with a petit pain au chocolat or pain au raisins; I also love their macarons, with a cup of tea. Upstairs is a Japanese restaurant (which I haven’t tried) that also has a Parisian style – weekend brunch is all you can eat and a mix of sushi, other Japanese dishes plus French cakes and pastries.