Food Review: Lufthansa Business Lounge at Frankfurt Airport

Lufthansa is not only known as a premier German airline, but a premier worldwide airline, period.

Booked to fly out of their hub at Frankfurt airport, I was excited to experience how they treat their business class passengers, but more importantly was eager to see how they feed them.

I arrived at the Business Class lounge in terminal 1 near gate Z50 at around 10:00am, early for the flight but just in time to grab some breakfast. I was preparing for my next flight, which would be on a Lufthansa 747 Business Class from Frankfurt to Bengaluru.

At this time of morning the lounge was surprisingly crowded. Like, extremely crowded. It was a challenge to even find an open seat. But luckily after waiting around for a few minutes, I spotted someone get up and I was able to rush over and claim the seat before heading over to try some of the food.

For such a large lounge, the food section was disappointingly small. While they had another satellite kitchen, it only served coffee and soft drinks, so all of the food options were clustered in this little area. As new food started rolling out it became crowded.

For breakfast they had a standard layout of scrambled eggs, baked beans, and sausage. Nothing too exciting, and frankly it was a selection that I would expect in any standard airline’s lounge.

In addition to the hot bar, they had a basket of croissants as well as a fresh salad station. At this point I decided breakfast was not worth the calories and I decided to wait it out until lunch since I still had a few hours to pass in the lounge.

I grabbed an espresso and settled in.

I was tempted by the candy selection. But I reminded myself what that it was still early, and my jet lag was no excuse to crush candy for breakfast.

While I waited I thought I would check out the dinnerware. After all we are in Germany, and they’re known to produce some of the best and highest quality products.

I really liked these little snack bowls that were stacked near the candy section. They would be great in any kitchen to keep salt, spices, sauces, or even for serving a tiny snack when during cooking prep.

The larger bowls had an identical design, and in my opinion are the perfect size bowls to use for cooking prep and presentation.

I discovered that all of the dinnerware is made by ASA selection and specifically from their A Table collection. A German brand founded in 1976, they make a high quality, classic style china that works well for multipurpose plating.

After a little while I noticed a cart rolling out with a new variety of food.  I knew this meant that lunch was being served, so I quickly got up and made sure I was one of the first in line.

The spread appeared to be a dish with farro, roasted carrots, rice, and some sort of simmering chili. At this point I was completely starving so didn’t ask questions and immediately fixed myself a plate.

To accompany lunch they started laying out bowls of pumpkin soup and what appeared to be a pudding style chocolate dessert. While I usually wouldn’t pick up a bowl, it looked and smelled delicious so i grabbed a serving.

As I finished up heaping food onto my plate, I realized that I had overlooked something – a baked pretzel. I was in Germany, so of course I needed to try one of their most iconic food items.

As I made my way back to the basket I could only find a sunflower seed option available. While it wasn’t my first choice, I knew that I had to try it.

I sat down to enjoy my meal at this point. I had helped myself to a selection of all of the available dishes accompanied by a light salad and shaved carrots that I spotted at the cold food station.

After digging in, I was actually super impressed with the quality of flavors from the hot dishes. They were well- balanced and paired together nicely.

The pretzel itself I found to be just OK. It was missing that burst of a salt that is needed on every pretzel. This one wasn’t terrible, but the lack of sodium made it rather bready.

With my meal finished and the slight disappointment of the pretzel burning inside of me, something caught my eye as I was walking out of the lounge.  They were refilling the pretzel basket, with a larger variety of options!

Could I really eat another whole pretzel? Especially when I’m boarding a flight that will be served food right away?

I sure could.

This time I spotted exactly what I wanted and immediately grabbed a classic pretzel sprinkled with sea salt. I inhaled it and made my way out the door, full but already dreaming about my next meal.

I would rate the Lufthansa Frankfurt lounge food as decent enough, but nothing truly special. From what I sampled, the quality seemed to be solid enough while the selection seemed rather thin, especially for a premium lounge of it’s size and nestled within the hub airport. Maybe I passed through at an off time of day? Perhaps the selection expands, but given the cramped space available to serve food I think thats is probably unlikely.

If you find yourself passing through the Lufthansa Frankfurt lounge before a flight I would say the food should be a pass. However, the lounge is enjoyable to catch some rest and worth a visit.