Weidenhof Frankfurt Zeil — Traditional Dining
Restaurant and ambience photography. Restaurant and food photography: Zeil FFM. In 1707 Goethe's grandfather acquired, through his marriage to Cornelia…
In 1707 Goethe's grandfather acquired, through his marriage to Cornelia Schelhorn, what was then Frankfurt's most famous hotel, the “Zum Weidenhof”. With WEIDENHOF ANNO MMIX you get Frankfurt's dining culture. The restaurant is divided into a stylish bar area, a classic dining area and modern wooden benches and tables for four. The restaurant quickly found its favorite spot. The spacious outdoor dining area seats around 320 guests and invites you to linger in the city center. The Weidenhof has disabled access and a cloakroom, offering all guests excellent quality of hospitality. Goethe once said: “The pleasure, however, is not transient, because the impression it leaves is lasting.”
Photographically the exterior is the hardest and at the same time the most important frame of the day. The Weidenhof stands in the middle of the Zeil, and hundreds of people cross that square at every hour. You cannot wait them out. So the order is built into the picture rather than looked for in the subject: straight on, centered, the two large parasols symmetrical to left and right, the gold lettering exactly on the axis. Once the composition holds, the guests in front of it read as life rather than clutter.
The exposure follows the lettering, not the sky. A dark façade under midday sun tempts you to lift it — and then the sky goes white and the gold goes flat. Kept down, the name stays legible and the parasols keep their drawing.
Inside, the frames are made before service, along the row of tables and from a low height. That way the grain of the oak tops runs into the depth, the dark chesterfield banquette forms a band behind it, and the three areas the text describes are visible in one picture. Head-on they would be furniture.
And the street behind the glass stays in. Passers-by with shopping bags are not an intrusion — they are half the reason this building stands where it stands.
- Location
- Zeil FFM
