Objective To investigate the dietary pattern and its influence on frailty in the elderly from a community in Xi′an. Methods From November 2018 to August 2019, a cross-sectional survey was conducted among the people aged 65 years or older dwelling in a community of Xi′an. According to the results of Fried phenotype of frailty, they were divided into three groups, that is, non-frail group, pre-frail group and frail group, with 100 people randomly selected from each group for further dietary survey. The general socio-demographic characteristics were investigated for the three groups. Dietary questionnaire and factor analysis were employed to investigate the types and quantity of food in the last 3 days and dietary patterns, respectively. SPSS statistics 25.0 was used for data analysis, rank sum test or Chi-square test was used for intergroup comparison based on different data types. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was used to analyze the correlation between dietary pattern and frailty. Results There were 1 693 elderly people subjected in this study, including 724 in the non-frail group, 694 in the pre-frail group, and 275 in the frail group. The total prevalence of frailty was 16.2% (275/1 693), but no significant difference was seen between males and females (15.7% vs 16.6%, P>0.05). Two dietary patterns, ordinary and meat-legume-oil diets, were identified through the survey. Compared with the ordinary dietary pattern, the elderly taking the meet-legume-oil dietary pattern consumed more meat, beans and oil, and significantly higher amounts of iron, vitamin E and unsaturated fatty acids (P<0.05). For those taking ordinary dietary pattern, the scores of dietary factors were obviously higher in the frail group than the non-frail group [-0.08 (-0.40,0.36) vs -0.32 (-0.59, 0.06), P<0.05], so as the pre-frail group and the non-frail group[-0.14(-0.43,0.21) vs -0.32(-0.59,0.06), P<0.05], respectively. But for the elderly taking meet-legume-oil dietary pattern, there were no significant differences in the scores of dietary factors among the three groups (P>0.05). Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that the score of ordinary dietary pattern was positively correlated with frailty, and the results were consistent after adjustment for age, gender, number of children, chronic disease, surgical history, and exercise frequency. Conclusion Frail elderly people are more inclined to the ordinary dietary pattern, which is positively correlated with the risk of frailty. The elderly should strengthen their intake of nutrients such as protein, fat and dietary fiber.