A neighourhood guide to El Poblenou: The chic area where you won't feel the anti-tourism heat

If you visit Barcelona right now, as the high season has firmly come to an end, it’s likely that you’ll have nothing but lovely interactions with the locals. This couldn’t be said for the city’s earlier visitors this summer, who had to endure being sprayed by water pistols and were driven out of the city centre by anti-tourism protests.

But there are still remnants of a particularly tense summer in Barca, with “tourists go home” graffiti near the local landmarks serving as a semi-permanent reminder.

But don’t let it put you off visiting the city. Barcelona needs tourism, it just doesn’t need centralised throngs of totally un-self aware tourists blocking traffic, holding selfie sticks and making their very lived-in city centre unlivable.

So, if you’re considering paying the place a visit soon, make like the locals and explore the El Poblenou neighbourhood instead. This is the place to go if you’re the type of person who likes to visit European cities to get a taste of what it’s actually like to live there.

The chic, up-and-coming area is popular among young Barcelonans due to its relative distance from the busy, visitor-heavy citadel and its closeness to some of Barcelona’s best beaches.

STAY

El Poblenou is just 30 minutes drive from Barcelona-El Prat Airport airport, and prominent hotel chains are starting to base themselves there, including Meliá Barcelona Sky, a 4-star hotel that is housed within an ultra-modern skyscraper designed by legendary French architect Dominique Perrault.

If views are your thing, this is the place to be, with Meliá Barcelona Sky currently standing as the fourth tallest building in the city (rooms from £144 a night, melia.com).

While Barcelona Sky is closer to the sea, there’s also a The Hoxton by Ennismore property in the area — offering that classic London hotel charm — and it is situated just 21 minutes walk from the Sagrada Familia (rooms from £153 a night, thehoxton.com).

But don’t feel like you need to walk everywhere: Poblenou is a station on one of the city’s most useful Metro lines, L4, making it easy to get to and from.

For this reason, if you’d rather stay central and venture out to El Poblenou, we recommend ME Barcelona, Meliá Barcelona Sky’s luxurious, avant-garde sister hotel nearer the centre of the city, which has a rooftop pool so stunning it practically demands to be photographed (rooms from £273 a night, melia.com).

DRINK

As for what do in Poblenou? Drink, firstly. This isn’t a party area, but it is a social one — like a Spanish Hackney, if Hackney wasn’t so extortionately expensive now, or so full of Australians. So, enjoy the slow paced Mediterranean drinking culture.

Recently opened Masa Vins (instagram.com/masa.vins) is an uber-trendy wine bar with mirrored interiors and despicably good looking, well-dressed customers. Oh, and the wine’s good too. Then there’s Henry’s Bar, located a seven minute walk away, via Carrer de Pere IV.

Henry’s feels like a Spanish version of Ridley Road Disco — the type of place you should end a lively night in Poblenou with some dancing and drunk inhaling of chicken wings.

EAT

“Chicken wings?!” you scoff. Line your stomach before then, with something more authentically Spanish, like tapas at El 58 (instagram.com/restauranteel58) or Galician razor clams and locally caught lobster at Racó de la Vila (racodelavilla.com).

But the best food will be found on the other side of Poblenou, nearer the station, at Bar Andalucía (Carrer d'Espronceda, 51, Sant Martí, 08005), with its hand-written menus and exceptional home cooking. A former worker’s bar from back when Poblenou was an entirely industrial area.

The menu changes ever slightly day by day according to which ingredients are fresh and in season. Shrimps, sardines, pork knuckle, tripe, steak of beef, paella, home-baked tarts, you name it, Bar Andalucia has it.

In the daytime, pass your time picking up sourdough buns and challah at Barbara Bakery, or visiting the ultra-stylish, appointment-only Vasto Gallery (Carrer de Llull, 109, 08005), which is part architecture project, part art space (vasto.es).

DO

But be sure to spend most of your time on the pristine nearby beaches, with Barcelona situated on the northeast coast of the Iberian Peninsula, like Playa de Bogatell and Nova Icaria, or brave the local nudist beach Mar Bella.

If there’s one way to ensure an anti-tourism free holiday, it’s blending in with the locals like this — it might just cost you your clothes.