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Dry Martini
For decades this has been one of the city's great cocktail joints, a classic of discreet, white-jacketed waiters who will whip up a fine, well, dry martini, or any other cocktail fantasy. Sit at the bar or plunge into the bloated, leather lounges. Out the back is the Speakeasy restaurant .
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Elephant
If you can manage to turn up here in a convertible, so much the better. This is like being invited to a celebs' garden party. Inside the big tent-like dance space things can heat up musically as the night wears on, but plenty of people just hang in the gardens with their cocktails.
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Flow
A touched-up old-time bar, with a mirror ball and a little-used pool table, this is a curious spot for a mixed drink, where you may witness anything from experimental classical music to amateur theatre.
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Gimlet
Transport yourself to a Humphrey Bogart movie, almost. The punters in this timeless cocktail bar seem to get younger and grungier all the time, but the cocktails remain the same, and somehow this simple little bar continues to exert a quiet magnetism.
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Harlem Jazz Club
Deep in the Barri Gòtic, this smoky dive is the first stop for jazz aficionados. Sessions include traditional and contemporary jazz along with creative fusions from around the world. They usually put on more than one cosy session an evening.
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Hotel Omm Bar
Locals and guests mix in a sensual synergy in this uptown posers' bar that is highly agreeable if you feel like a little London-New York style attitude in a hip hotel setting. Just watching some of the less fiscally challenged cavort makes it worthwhile.
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Icària Yelmo Cineplex
Behind the Port Olímpic, this multiplex has 15 screens showing mainstream and art-house movies in the original language - the biggest such concentration in the city.
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Jamboree
This cavernous place with multiple low-ceiling spaces has been bringing headline jazz and blues acts to Barcelona for decades. Gigs tend to start at 23:00 and end by 02:00, at which time it converts into a club cranking out mostly funk and hippety-hop.
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Kentucky
Once a popular hang-out for US Navy personnel when the boys were in town, this narrow exercise in Americana kitsch is a smoke-filled, surreal drinking dive, almost always packed to the rafters.
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L'Auditori
The permanent home of Barcelona's symphony orchestra (OBC) is a starkly modern pleasure dome for serious music lovers, designed by renowned architect Rafael Moneo. Its comfortable (and acoustically unrivalled) main auditorium hosts orchestral performances, as well as occasional world-music jams. Chamber music is performed in a small, cosier and acoustically fabulous auditorium.
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La Botellita
This is a fiery uptown place to get your motor running before hitting the clubs. Head upstairs to a kind of narrow gangway. Here you understand why the place is called the Little Bottle. Behind the bar are little minibar-style bottles of all your preferred poisons, and that's what you're served.
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La Cova Del Drac
Run by the Mas i Mas group that owns Jamboree, this is a good, if awkwardly located, spot for jazz sessions most nights of the week. In the rather cosy atmosphere, you can stumble across anything from local solo vocalists to Dixieland, from Afro blues to avant garde. Start times vary, but tend towards the late side.
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La Fianna
There is something medieval-Oriental about this bar, with its bare stone walls, forged iron candelabras and cushion-covered lounges. La Fianna has another big selling point - it is one of the places to do Sunday brunch (from 14:00 to 19:00).
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La Paloma
The 100-year-old La Paloma is a unique local institution and an essential night out. The evening starts early with the band playing cha-chas and tangos to a chirpy crowd of middle-aged and retired couples. From midnight it sheds its nostalgia skin to become one of the hippest, hoppiest dance dives in town.
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La Vinya del Senyor
A wine-taster's fantasy, this bar has a stunning location looking out over the Església de Santa Maria del Mar. You can choose from almost 300 varieties of wine and cava from around the world and enjoy inventive platillos (mini-tapas) as you sip your drink. Try to grab the table by the window upstairs.
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Les Gens que J'aime
Incurably romantic, this basement bar in l'Eixample combines candlelight and privacy with antique red-velvet sofas and dark wood furniture and trims. It's the perfect place for a night of sweet nothings.
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Luz de Gas
Anything goes at this large and happening music hall that hosts residencies and big international names from the worlds of soul, country, salsa, rock, jazz, pop and cabaret in a beautiful belle époque setting. The versatile place converts into a thumping club with something of a meat-market reputation. Next door, in Sala B, the pace is slower and the bars plentiful over two floors.
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Manchester
Feeling nostalgic for the sounds of Manchester? This is the place to fill up on Depeche Mode, The Smiths, Radiohead and other bands associated with the city. Inside, red is the predominant shade and cocktails the principal tipple. They have a sister joint in El Raval.
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Maria
For a great rock 'n' roll atmosphere, step back in time to this Gràcia classic. Play pool at the back or elbow your way to the bar for a beer or cocktail. Musical nostalgia takes care of the rest in this cramped but agreeable little bar.
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Maumau Underground
Funk, soul, hip-hop - you never know what you might run into in this popular little Poble Sec music and dance haunt. Above the backlit bar a huge screen spews forth psychodelic images, which on Sunday afternoons (see website for hours) converts to a football screen for laid-back fans.
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Metro
Both dance floors here are absolutely heaving at weekends (and on weekday theme nights), when a 90% gay crowd thumps to top-of-the-range house and techno. During the week it's dance-club pop and handbags ahoy, with strip nights, bingo events and other animation, if you need any.
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Michael Collins Pub
Of all the many (and increasing number) of Irish pubs, this is one of the most agreeable. The Guinness is good and the punters, although many are foreigners, are generally residents rather than stag-night blow-ins.
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Milk Bar & Bistro
Smiling bar staff, 1920s wallpaper, comfortable lounges and gently wafting chill-out music conspire to create an inviting ambience for a languorous tipple or three. The cocktails are inventive, light meals are available and Sunday brunch is a formidable hangover cure.
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Mirablau
For the most stunning views of Barcelona - and the spectacle of the city's rich and famous dancing badly - head for this chichi bar and club. Doormen come on for the club at 23:00, and it helps if you're wearing Prada to get past them.
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Moog
Moog (named after the synthesiser) is reliable for techno and electronica, and always packed with a young, enthusiastic crowd. Bigger in stature than in size, it attracts lots of big-name DJs. Upstairs specialises in indie retro pop numbers and is better for conversationalists.
