Montjuïc & Poble-sec

The friends who launched Red Rocket Bar have also got a pintxos bar going in C/Blai: Es Xibiu benefits by having a Mallorcan in co-owner Bel, as well as a selection of pintxos (similar to tapas, mounted on small pieces of bread) with an unbeatable value for money and a dish of the day. Be sure to try the Mallorcan speciality drink, palo amb sifó. Saturdays at lunchtime mean vermouth hour with music spun by the best rock 'n' soul DJs on the national scene.

Some people will never get over the fact that Barcelona has three cold days a year. If you’re one of those people, then head straight to Barramon. Have a glass of wine, a dish of the house crinkly fried potatoes and imagine that you’re in the Canaries. The quiet intimacy of the tables, the black-and-white movie stills and the muted bar lights will multiply your nostalgia for palm trees tenfold. Also has a terrace on Carrer Blai.

This bar belongs to the Slow Food movement – they use local, sustainable produce to make the dishes for a menu that is quite short but more than sufficient to satisfy hungry bellies. Their bio-patatas bravas are rightly renowned. As is the outdoor terrace, just in front of the Montjuïc air-raid shelter.

A small restaurant that offers a well-chosen selection of small, tasty dishes. You can’t go wrong with their Burger Queen – it’s a meal in itself.

Don’t be suspicious of beautiful places: The interior decor at Federica is delightfully vintage (1970s Formica and plastic), while it serves such delicacies as dried tomato mousse and marinated eggplant, together with other Italian specialities fused with Argentine cuisine. Good list of wines and cocktails.

I don’t like to go against a puppeteer and a stagehand, because they are the kind of people who pulls the strings. If a couple like this owns the Tribal bar, and when they say that they prepare the best mojitos and caipirinhas of Poble Sec, I shut up my mouth, believe them and drink three in a row. While swallowing, I take a look to the puppets hanging everywhere, the imported beers and tables for couples who still have something to say each other. Okay, you've won; I'm a puppet in your hands!

La Saltó is a pioneering venue that has helped to turn Poble Sec into one of the liveliest districts in the city. And even though their opening hours are more night-time bar than local shop, neighbours often drop by in the evening to fill up their jugs of wine from the barrels. But the wine is not Bodega Saltó’s main attraction. There are not many places as picturesque as this in Barcelona. Renovated by designer Steve Forster in 2002, the bar operates as a small, quirky exhibition with all kinds of weird and wonderful things – antiques, stuffed tigers or dolls drinking from porrones.

This Argentinean family restaurant makes one of the city’s best matambres – veal roll stuffed with egg, spinach and carrot served cold in thin slices. They also do very good barbecue meats, escalope milanesa and empanadas.

Named for the song by the Sonics, Psycho is a rock and roll bar that ticks all the boxes: red bar and walls, posters of The Who, The Dead Boys and Mystery Train; stickers of Black Flag, Shaft, Route 66, 13th Floor Elevators, Motorhead and Misfits; and a small back room where you can dance and sweat alongside the excellent sound system.Psycho's clientele is varied, but tattoos and the '50s look abound, with an age range from late-20s to early-40s. The big draw is Psycho's proximity to Apollo, and as it's open daily, it's the perfect place for a pre- or post-concert drink. You might even end up rubbing elbows with some of your favourite band members, as has been the case with Neurosis, Deer Tick and Swing Kids, who have all knocked back a drink or two in Psycho.

The war story goes something like this: the city government, in an effort to discourage private entities from getting into debt in the name of culture, prevents live music from playing the prominent role in Barcelona nightlife that local groups (and music lovers) are dying for, by laying down increasingly strict regulations. One of the few places that once gave life to the city, El Clandestino – which in little more than a year and a half had become one of the epicentres of local music – was dismantled.Gràcia's Roxanne is the most recent victim, and we offer our condolences and our rage. This fight is fierce and we will not surrender. We are like weeds: no matter how much you pull us up by our roots, we will continue sprouting up through every crack and crevice. We will win because we’ve got nothing to lose. They do: the next election.The staff of El Clandestino – Dani, Jorge, Ghenadie and Berta – have come back with El Rufián, a Poble-sec locale specialising in beers, vermouth, and aperetifs. The ingredients are simple: a cosy spot with modest aesthetics, excellent music, a friendly atmosphere and premium drinks – dark Moritz (not Epidur) from the barrel, La Secuita vermouth, olives and anchovies from L’Escala, tomatoes preserved in pesto from Navarra …Saturdays and Sundays are a party: go in for some vermouth and you’ll find a great place to meet kindred spirits spending the afternoon in good company. Conversation is flowing and energetic, the house beer – a mix of pale and

'One museum, a thousand years of art' is the slogan of the National Museum, and the collection provides a dizzying overview of Catalan art from the 12th to the 20th centuries. In recent years the museum has added an extra floor to absorb the section of the Thyssen-Bornemisza collection that was previously kept in the convent in Pedralbes, along with the mainly Modernista holdings from the former Museum of Modern Art in Parc de la Ciutadella, a fine photography section, coins and the bequest of Francesc Cambó, founder of the autonomist Lliga Regionalista, a regionalist conservative party.The highlight, however, is the Romanesque collection. As art historians realised that scores of solitary tenth-century churches in the Pyrenees were falling into ruin – and with them, extraordinary Romanesque murals that had served to instruct villagers in the basics of the faith – the laborious task was begun of removing the murals from church apses. The display here features 21 mural sections in loose chronological order. A highlight is the tremendous Crist de Taüll, from the 12th-century church of Sant Climent de Taüll. Even 'graffiti' scratchings (probably by monks) of animals, crosses and labyrinths have been preserved.The excellent Gothic collection starts with some late 13th-century frescoes that were discovered in 1961 and 1997, when two palaces in the city were being renovated. There are carvings and paintings from local churches, including works by the indisputable Catalan masters of

One of the masterpieces of industrial Modernisme, this former yarn and textile factory was designed by Puig i Cadafalch and celebrated its centenary in 2011. It spent most of the last century in a sorry state, briefly acting as a police barracks before falling into dereliction. Fundació La Caixa, the charitable arm of Catalonia's largest savings bank, bought it and set about rebuilding. The original brick structure was supported, while the ground below was excavated to house a strikingly modern entrance plaza by Arata Isozaki, a Sol LeWitt mural, an auditorium, a bookshop and a library. In addition to the permanent contemporary art collection, there are three impressive spaces for temporary exhibitions – often among the most interesting shows to be found in the city. Other notable Puig i Cadafalch buildings in the city include the Els Quatre Gats café and the Casa Amatller.

Josep Lluís Sert, who spent the years of the Franco dictatorship as dean of the School of Design at Harvard University, designed one of the greatest museum buildings in the world on his return. Approachable, light and airy, these white walls and arches house a collection of more than 225 paintings, 150 sculptures and all of Miró's graphic work, plus some 5,000 drawings. The permanent collection, highlighting Miró's trademark use of primary colours and simplified organic forms symbolising stars, the moon, birds and women, occupies the second half of the space. On the way to the sculpture gallery is Alexander Calder's rebuilt Mercury Fountain, originally seen at the Spanish Republic's Pavilion at the 1937 Paris Fair. In other works, Miró is shown as a cubist (Street in Pedralbes, 1917), naive (Portrait of a Young Girl, 1919) and surrealist (Man and Woman in Front of a Pile of Excrement, 1935). In the upper galleries, large, black-outlined paintings from Miró's final period precede a room of works with political themes.

Built for the 1929 Exhibition and designed by the Modernista architect Josep Puig i Cadafalch, this composite Spanish village is charming or kitsch depending on your taste, and features reproductions of traditional buildings and squares from every region in Spain. The cylindrical towers at the entrance are copied from the walled city of Ávila and lead on to a typical Castilian main square; from here, visitors can explore a tiny whitewashed street from Arcos de la Frontera in Andalucía, then head to the 16th-century House of Chains from Toledo. There are numerous bars and restaurants, a flamenco tablao and more than 60 shops selling Spanish crafts. Outside, street performers re-create snippets of Catalan and Spanish folklore.

Still in possession of its original plumbing, the 'magic fountain' works its wonders with 3,600 pieces of tubing and more than 4,500 light bulbs. On summer evenings, the multiple founts swell and dance to anything from the 1812 Overture to Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Caballé's Barcelona, showing off a kaleidoscope of pastel colours.

Vintage-Room is the online store that Anna and Manuel have used as a receptacle for their all-encompassing obsession with furniture and objects from the '50s, '60s and '70s. Their discoveries in markets both in the south of France and right nearby are on display at Vintage-Room, where you can book a time to visit and check it out.

Built for the 1929 Exhibition and designed by the Modernista architect Josep Puig i Cadafalch, this composite Spanish village is charming or kitsch depending on your taste, and features reproductions of traditional buildings and squares from every region in Spain. The cylindrical towers at the entrance are copied from the walled city of Ávila and lead on to a typical Castilian main square; from here, visitors can explore a tiny whitewashed street from Arcos de la Frontera in Andalucía, then head to the 16th-century House of Chains from Toledo. There are numerous bars and restaurants, a flamenco tablao and more than 60 shops selling Spanish crafts. Outside, street performers re-create snippets of Catalan and Spanish folklore.

Josep Lluís Sert, who spent the years of the Franco dictatorship as dean of the School of Design at Harvard University, designed one of the greatest museum buildings in the world on his return. Approachable, light and airy, these white walls and arches house a collection of more than 225 paintings, 150 sculptures and all of Miró's graphic work, plus some 5,000 drawings. The permanent collection, highlighting Miró's trademark use of primary colours and simplified organic forms symbolising stars, the moon, birds and women, occupies the second half of the space. On the way to the sculpture gallery is Alexander Calder's rebuilt Mercury Fountain, originally seen at the Spanish Republic's Pavilion at the 1937 Paris Fair. In other works, Miró is shown as a cubist (Street in Pedralbes, 1917), naive (Portrait of a Young Girl, 1919) and surrealist (Man and Woman in Front of a Pile of Excrement, 1935). In the upper galleries, large, black-outlined paintings from Miró's final period precede a room of works with political themes.

Keep your eyes open wide as you enter into this little illustrated cave, packed wall to wall with stories about bears hunting salmon or the latest graphic novels from the hottest authors this second. This is Fatbottom, the graphic bookstore featuring everything from the classic comic book to pure artistic illustration.

This concert hall/nightclub has become the paradigm of indie clubbing in Barcelona and good live music without labels. Artists new to the scene as well as acclaimed pop, rock, folk and international electronic music stars grace the stage every day of the week.

Right in the centre of Poble-sec, Mau Mau Underground is a lounge club in an old warehouse space. It's open Thursday to Saturday, as well as whenever there's a football match on (so.. every day?), and with its two giant screens it's a great place to watch the match with a group of friends. Behind the bar they pour more than 35 types of gin and 20-some premium vodkas.

In this little hole dug out of the cement in Poble-sec, the air is filled with the musty, bohemian scent of tango taverns from the turn of the 20th century. With 12 years behind it, Tinta Roja is no spring chicken, but it seems as old as the Giza Necropolis. Ghosts whisper Argentinean milongas into your ear, and the air smells as if it has been imported specially from Argentina.Crossing the threshold is like being transported to a Victorian occultist fair in Rosario, as you dive into the reddish depths of the bar, you're welcomed by antique furniture, tables and chairs, strange objects covered with dust – a bicycle, an accordion – yellowed paintings from times gone by... A parade of enchanting old artefacts that give way to borderline grotesque surroundings that play host to dance classes and tango concerts.The surreal atmosphere creates a sort of acid trip–like euphoria, accentuated by the dim, reddish lighting and countless dark corners. A place out of time in an era of premium cocktail lounges and hipster beach bars. Without a doubt, if you drink enough of the delicious Argentinean liquor Legui, and if you’re not bothered about hearing voices, put your ear to the wall: you’ll swear you can hear Carlos Gardel singing Mi Buenos Aires Querido from a gramophone beyond the grave.

Following the renovations in 2010, this famous theatre has been reborn from its ashes. El Molino ('The Mill' – think Moulin Rouge) has regained the splendour of its glory days when it was the best-known theatre of the Paral·lel area, irreverent and with its own way of poking fun at the censorhsip of the time. El Molino continues its history of cabaret, burlesque and music hall shows, as well as theatre and flamenco performances.

A restaurant-club in Poble Espanyol that offers cabaret shows, where Evita Mansfield is the reigning queen, and the rest of us mere subjects; but we are allowed to dine, and dine well, as the kitchen offers a creative menu. That's the norm for a Friday night, as the other nights are when we are entertained with live music from the latest Catalan pop-rock bands, who can also sometimes be resident bands at the club.