The third queen eliminated from Drag Race Germany, LéLé Cocoon wowed fans of the show with a vibe that had us thinking, “I wanna to party where she parties.” Though she didn’t make it to the back half of the season, LéLé made a lasting impression with her fetish runway look and the seahorse earrings she wore in her confessionals.
The 23-year-old grew up in a small town in the mountains northwest of Frankfurt, but moved to the big city about three and a half years ago. “That was the best decision I ever made in my life,” she tells Pink Ticket. Her drag career started out with her doing makeup for Instagram in 2019. About a year later, she was invited by a friend to participate in the competition Drag Slam (see details below). “I was delusional. My 19-year-old self was like, ‘You can do this, you can do makeup, you can perform. Why the fuck not?’ There were six contestants and the audience voted for who they liked best. I actually won.” A few years and many club appearances later, she represented Frankfurt on the debut season of Drag Race Germany.
Frankfurt, a modern city with a metro population of 5.8 million, is not at the top of the list of Germany’s most charming destinations. But as the largest financial hub in continental Europe, and with one of the world’s busiest airports, it’s a city many travellers end up visiting. And with its huge, diverse population, it’s a city with something for everyone.
“People don’t think Frankfurt is beautiful, but let me tell you, it really is,” says LéLé. “In World War II, a lot of the old town was destroyed, and instead of rebuilding it, like they did in many other German cities, they decided to put a modern twist on it. That’s why we are the only city in Germany to have skyscrapers. And the beautiful skyline. When you’re on the Eiserner Steg bridge on the Main, the river which goes through Frankfurt, that’s the most beautiful view at sunset.”
Where to go (and not go) in the city
I wouldn’t recommend spending much time in the area around the central train station (Frankfurt [Main] Hauptbahnhof), which is usually where people arrive. People always get a bad first impression because it’s an area where a lot of drug abuse happens out on the street. I would recommend spending more time in Nordend, which is where I live. That’s where a lot of families live—there’s a lot of cute cafés, beautiful buildings. If you’re a true Frankfurter, you do not go to the city centre, which is just so busy and is where all the commuters work. But it has this huge shopping street, Zeil, which is where the most historic sites are.
The LGBTQ+ scene
There is a small street close to the city centre, around Schäfergasse and Alte Gasse, near the Konstablerwache transit station, that’s full of gay and queer bars. It’s a pretty small area, with smaller venues because we don’t have bigger gay clubs, just bigger venues where queer events happen. You need to be careful because you might run into sketchy people there walking around at night. The most popular bar now is probably PINK (Alte G. 34, Frankfurt am Main). It’s really, really tiny, with a stage that’s, like, one square metre. But it’s cute and they’ll have your favourite pop music playing.
Around the corner there’s Bar Central (Elefantengasse 13, Frankfurt am Main) which has lots of different vibes going on—Turkish music, Arabic music, R&B.
The gay and queer party scene exists in many different places. Café KoZ (Mertonstraße 26-28, Frankfurt am Main) is one of the key venues. It’s very much for young people—it’s on a university campus, actually. The party, which is called Queertastic, is quite cheap and happens twice a month. There’s always a drag show. I’ve performed there several times.
Then we have Atomic Party (Kurt-Schumacher-Straße 45, Frankfurt am Main), which is an indie party held every second Friday. Eighties with a lot of everything mixed in—and drag shows.
There’s Pure Gay Clubbing (usually held monthly at Karlson, Karlstraße 17, Frankfurt am Main) and Ballroom-Code Queer (usually held monthly at Fortuna Irgendwo, Hanauer Landstraße 192, Frankfurt am Main). These two have a similar vibe; they’re a bit more expensive and attract people aged 25 to 35. For Ballroom, it’s not really ballroom culture—it’s more gay than queer.
I would also recommend FREUD (Holzgraben 9, Frankfurt am Main), which is a techno place with a queer party called bizarre. They have awareness teams to make sure people understand that it’s queer friendly, security, everything. I feel welcome there every time. People dress however the fuck they want, more creatively. You see a lot of cool outfits there. I also did a photoshoot for one of my looks for Drag Race Germany there.
I got started doing drag on stage at Drag Slam (Orange Peel, Kaiserstraße 39, Frankfurt am Main), which happens monthly.
What to see during the daytime
Definitely go to the old town. Römerberg is where the town hall is, and I think it’s the most touristy tourist attraction you can find in Frankfurt. About five years ago, they rebuilt another area of the old town (New Frankfurt Old Town, also known as the Dom-Römer Quarter), which looks beautiful with all these reconstructed buildings. It’s worth seeing, though it doesn’t have a lot of life in it. There is also the Paulskirche (Paulsplatz 11, Frankfurt am Main), where a lot of historic events happened. Around 1849, when Germany wasn’t even a country, they held the first parliament in Germany in that church, and adopted the Frankfurt Constitution. I’m a history nerd. I’m obsessed.
Because skyscrapers are not typical in Europe, you should go and see them. You can go to the top of Main Tower (Neue Mainzer Straße 52-58; Frankfurt am Main), which has a beautiful view over the city. Lohrberg (located in Lohrpark, a short walk from Bad Vilbel Bahnhof bus stop) is a bit outside of the city—people usually go there on weekends to chill. There’s a little restaurant at the top of the hill there, or you can have a picnic on the lawn. It’s a beautiful view over the city.
The city forest, called Stadtwald (reachable by tram to the Neu-Isenburg Stadtgrenze stop), is south of the city. It’s very cute and they have a wooden tower that you can go up to see the skyline. I am giving you lots of things to do that involve seeing the city from above.
We have lots of museums, especially around the old town. There is Städel (Schaumainkai 63, Frankfurt am Main), which is the big art gallery, Das Museum für Moderne Kunst (Domstraße 10, Frankfurt am Main), which has modern art, Das Historisches Museum Frankfurt (Saalhof 1, Frankfurt am Main), where you can learn about the history of the city, and Naturmuseum Senckenberg (Senckenberganlage 25, Frankfurt am Main), which is for history, natural history, biology. My favourite is Senckenberg, which has skeletons of dinosaurs and stuff from ancient Egypt. I should steal some ideas for drag from this museum.
The Frankfurt food scene
Two Frankfurt things inspired my drag for Drag Race Germany. One was Der Struwwelpeter, a book by Heinrich Hoffmann about children misbehaving—there’s a museum dedicated to the author and his work (Struwwelpeter Museum, Hinter dem Lämmchen 2-4, Frankfurt am Main). The other was for my “Dinner is Served” runway, this famous dish called Handkäse mit Musik, which is a very smelly cheese that originated in the state of Hesse, Frankfurt particularly. [LéLé was eliminated from competition before she got to show off either look.]
I don’t eat out a lot—I like to save money. One place that’s good when going out with a group of people is Pak Choi (Elbestraße 12, Frankfurt am Main), which has these little dishes, mostly Chinese food, that are great for sharing.
The regional cuisine is very heavy in meat, potatoes and cabbage. We have lots of different sausages here. I’ve been twice to Gaststätte Atschel (Wallstraße 7, Frankfurt am Main), which has very good local Hesse cuisine. You can also try Apfelwein there, which translates literally as “apple wine.”
Drag brunch was not really a thing here until maybe the last year or two, but now there are a couple. One is Eat It, which is held every month or so (usually at Freitagsküche, Mainzer Landstraße 105, Frankfurt am Main). Very cute people, always. I love the organizers. It’s very queer with drag kings, queens, other artists, singers. It’s very diverse. Another is held at Bar Shuka (Niddastraße 56, Frankfurt am Main), which serves Israeli cuisine.
An easy day trip
You can get to Großer Feldberg, which is more than 880 metres tall, the highest mountain near Frankfurt, by using the U-bahn (line 3 to Hohemark station) and then walking about 30 minutes to the top. If you go in winter it’s so beautiful because it’s so high up that, when in Frankfurt you don’t have snow, there will be snow there—lots of it. On weekends in the winter it’s packed with people from the city and the region.
Where to stay
Obviously I don’t stay at hotels in Frankfurt, but one I can recommend is the Moxy Hotel (the Frankfurt East location is at Hanauer Landstraße 162, Frankfurt am Main; the City Centre one is located at Thurn-und-Taxis-Platz 8, Frankfurt am Main) because they have a lot of drag shows—they’re so friendly and open to drag queens.
