Best Restaurants in Nuremberg: Where Locals and Travelers Actually Eat

Nuremberg doesn’t get talked about the way Munich or Berlin do, but ask anyone who’s spent a few days here and food comes up fast. This is sausage country, sure — but it’s also home to a two-Michelin-star kitchen, a beloved neighborhood spot run by a former Vietnamese restaurateur turned restaurant owner, and a bratwurst house older than the printing press. If you’re searching for the best restaurants in Nuremberg and want something more useful than a generic top-10 list, here’s a breakdown across three price tiers, built from traveler forums, TripAdvisor threads, and the kind of word-of-mouth that actually holds up once you’re standing in line.

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Table of Contents

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How I picked these

I went through threads on the Rick Steves travel forum, TripAdvisor’s Nuremberg restaurant board, and Google reviews looking for the same names coming up again and again — not just from one glowing post, but from repeat visitors, locals defending their favorites, and the occasional disappointed review that kept things honest. One restaurant per price bracket, all of them in Nuremberg itself (not the surrounding Franconia region, where a few famous names like Aura in Wirsberg technically don’t count).

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Splurge: etz

If you ask a local food-obsessive where to eat in Nuremberg once and money’s not the issue, etz comes up almost every time. Chef Felix Schneider opened it in a former pharmacy building in 2021 and picked up two Michelin stars within a year — plus a Green Star for sustainability, which isn’t decorative here. The kitchen ferments, forages, and makes its own butter, ham, miso, and vinegar in-house, and the seasonal tasting menu runs four to five hours across twelve to sixteen courses.

Location: Wiesentalstraße 40, 90419 Nürnberg. The entrance is genuinely easy to miss — it’s tucked into a courtyard reached via Kirschgartenstraße 6, in a residential neighborhood northwest of the Old Town. Budget extra time to find it, or just plug the address into Google Maps and trust it. There’s no convenient tram stop right outside, so a taxi or rideshare from the center is the easiest route; it’s roughly a 20-minute walk from Hauptmarkt.

Feedback: Reviewers split into two camps. One group calls it the best meal they’ve had anywhere, including Michelin spots in Tokyo and Paris, and praises the open kitchen and relaxed-but-precise service. A smaller group finds the portions too conceptual for the price — more art project than dinner, as one TripAdvisor reviewer put it. Worth knowing going in: this isn’t classic fine dining with white tablecloths and silver domes. It’s closer to a long, talkative evening in someone’s experimental kitchen.

Tips and reservations: Open Thursday to Saturday only, with a fixed evening start time around 6:15 PM and a kitchen tour beforehand. Book at least a month or two out — this isn’t a same-week reservation kind of place. Vegetarian menu available on request.

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Mid-range: globo

For something that won’t wreck your budget but still feels like an occasion, globo is the one that keeps getting recommended by people who actually live in Nuremberg. It sits right behind the Martin-Behaim monument on Theresienplatz, in the literal shadow of the statue the restaurant takes its name from. The kitchen mixes regional Franconian ingredients with international plates — think mussels and fries one night, a shared “TeilMahl” tasting spread the next — and it’s changed hands a couple of times over the years without losing its following.

Location: Theresienplatz 1, 90403 Nürnberg, right in the Altstadt. It’s walkable from basically anywhere in the old town center, and a five-minute stroll from Hauptmarkt.

Feedback: A 4.6 to 4.8 rating across review sites isn’t unusual for restaurants in Nuremberg, Germany, but globo’s reviews stand out for mentioning staff by name — people talk about the host remembering them on a second visit, or the kitchen putting together an off-menu dish on request. Reported price per person lands somewhere between 35 and 70 euros depending on what you order and whether wine’s involved, which is what makes it a genuine mid-tier pick rather than a budget spot dressed up.

Tips and reservations: It gets packed on weekend evenings, so reserve ahead if you’re set on a specific time, though walk-ins do sometimes get lucky. The outdoor seating under the trees by the monument is one of the better people-watching spots in the city center during summer.

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Budget: Zum Gulden Stern

For cheap eats that still count as one of the top restaurants in Nuremberg by reputation, Zum Gulden Stern is the move. It claims the title of the world’s oldest bratwurst kitchen, with documents placing it on this exact spot since 1419 — a date that’s hard to argue with. Several longtime visitors specifically point to this one over its more famous neighbor, Bratwursthäusle, as the place locals actually go, since it sits a few minutes off the main tourist path near the old city wall.

Location: Zirkelschmiedsgasse 26, 90402 Nürnberg, in the southwest corner of the Altstadt. It’s about a 10-minute walk from Hauptmarkt or the main train station; the nearest bus stop is Spittlertorgraben.

Feedback: The sausages — grilled over an open beech-wood fire, exactly as they’ve always been — get consistent praise, especially paired with the housemade potato salad and sauerkraut. Reviewers occasionally flag slow or brusque service during busy lunch rushes, but the food quality rarely gets a bad word. Don’t expect much beyond meat-and-potatoes Franconian classics; vegetarian options are thin here.

Tips and reservations: Open daily, 11 AM to 10 PM, kitchen closes around 9:30 PM. Same-day reservations are accepted online until 4 PM, or just call ahead for a short-notice table. Cash still goes a long way in older German restaurants like this one, so carry some.

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General tips

A few things apply no matter which of these you pick. German restaurants almost always charge for tap water, tipping around 5–10% in cash is standard and appreciated, and Nuremberg sausages are a protected regional product — the small ones you’ll see everywhere can legally only be made within the city. If you’re visiting during the Christmas market season, book everything earlier than you think you need to; even budget spots fill up fast in December. Beyond these three, Nuremberg’s food scene rewards wandering — small wine bars, Imbiss sausage stands, and family-run Italian spots are tucked into nearly every street of the old town, and some of the best meals come from places that never make a single list.