Bremen also calls itself the city of many flavours. The restaurants of Bremen and Bremerhaven offer a huge range of regional and international delicacies in a maritime atmosphere.

Knipp or oatmeal with meat was a dish eaten by peat diggers. Offal and bacon rind were minced and mixed with oatmeal, then the knipp was fried and served with fried potatoes and pickled gherkins or apple sauce. Nowadays, calf's liver and neck of pork replace offal, so this hearty meal still finds a place on the menus of Bremen.

Visitors from outside Bremen are only allowed to take part in a Schaffer banquet once in their lives. The oldest men-only banquet in the world, it has been held every February since 1545 and is the occasion when the end of winter and the beginning of a new trading season are celebrated by leading townsmen. The order in which the food and drinks are served has been fixed since 1545, and they include Bremen chicken soup, malty "sailor's beer", salt cod and kale with pinkel.

Kale and pinkel, Bremen's favourite meal, consists of plenty of curly kale accompanied by a variety of rich meat dishes. Pinkel is a traditional type of sausage made with a particular section of pig's intestine stuffed with oatmeal. The dish is traditionally eaten on an excursion with friends or work colleagues, a quintessential Bremen custom known as a "kale and pinkel trip".