Els Quatre Gats

The original Els Quatre Gats – it reopened in 1978 – was only open from 1897 to 1903, but enough happened to make it a place of pilgrimage for artists. Opened by Pere Romeu, a Catalan who'd worked as a waiter in a Paris cabaret and wanted to create a similarly bohemian atmosphere in Barcelona, it became the meeting place of painters Miquel Utrillo, Ramon Casas and Santiago Rusiñol. One of their hangers-on was the teenage Picasso, whose first solo exhibition was held in Els Quatre Gats. Today it is worth a look and a drink in the Barri Gòtic, but the food is overpriced. The modernist interior has indeed been beautifully restored, but not the bohemian feel that attracted its first customers.

• Carrer de Montsió 3, + 34 93 302 4140, 4gats.com. Open daily 10am-1am

Milano Cocktail Bar

Milano Cocktail Bar

In a central street dominated mainly by office buildings, health insurance companies and the odd sex shop, Milano, at first sight, is little more than a technicoloured curtain set in the wall. Part it and go down the basement steps, and you will emerge, probably surprised, into a softly lit cocktail bar where plenty of writers and artists go precisely because there is nothing arty about the place – just friendly service and good drinks, a mixed clientele and no dress code. For those who can afford it – the Milano is not cheap – it is open until the small hours.

• Ronda Universitat 35, +34 93 481 3327, camparimilano.com. Open daily noon-2.30am

L'Horiginal

L'Horiginal

L'Horiginal has saved the bacon of many writers and poets who have combed the city for a free place to perform. Every Wednesday, the owner leaves her large back room in the hands of performance poet Josep Pedrals, who has been organising the poetic equivalent of a knees-up here for the last few years. Walking out of the back room, you enter the restaurant area, beyond which are the bar (one wall of which is chock full of books for sale) and, on the stone esplanade in front of Barcelona's contemporary art museum, a shaded Raval terrace with fast service. You can have your aperitif outdoors, browse books in the bar, have supper next door then digest to the sound of some of the best poets in Barcelona.

• Carrer de Ferlandina 29, horiginal.net, +34 93 443 3988. Open Tues-Thurs 1pm-2am, Fri-Sat 1pm-2.30am, Sun 1pm-midnight

Cafè Salambó

Cafè Salambó

The Salambó is the Rolls-Royce of the city's literary bars, with a sleek wooden interior, lights like slimmed-down punch bags, upstairs billiards, jazz on the PA, a permanent exhibition of art, and what are claimed to be the best mojitos and caipirinhas in Barcelona. This is one of the few bars where writers in both Spanish and Catalan can be found harmonising and even taking part in improvised literary discussions. The Salambó in Gràcia is both lively and hushed at the same time, and therefore welcoming for people who wish to sit and read (or write) quietly over a coffee or something more creatively disinhibiting.

• Carrer de Torrijos 51, +34 93 218 6966, cafesalambo.com. Open Mon-Thurs 5pm-1am, Fri 5pm-3am, Sat noon-3pm, Sun noon-midnight,

Laie

Laie

The Laie in Eixample Dret is one of the baker's dozen of Barcelona's large independent bookshops that have managed to survive the first waves of the current crisis, and one of the reasons it has done so is that it was the first to install an all-day bar and cafe – with an outside terrace in the summer. You can go straight into the bookshop (which has a fair selection of English-language titles) or up to the first-floor cafe. Service is slick and the atmosphere so library-like that customers frown at mobile phone shouters or Skype yellers (the Wi-Fi is free). Publishers and authors regularly use the place to (quietly) talk business.

• Carrer Pau Claris 85, +34 93 318 1739, laie.es. Cafe open Mon-Fri 9am-9pm, Sat 10am-9pm

Lletraferit

Lletraferit

This cocktail bar, bookshop, library and tea parlour in Raval wears its literary pedigree on its sleeve: the Catalan name means, approximately, lover of literature. On entering, it looks like many of the slickly designed steel and glass bars in the city centre. But venture further in and you find yourself in a private library, with armchairs grouped round tables and a large selection of books in French, Catalan, Spanish and English, most of which can be read on the spot while others are for sale. Anyone wondering why French titles feature so heavily need only know that the owner is Alexandre Diego Gary, the son of writer Romain Gary (White Dog) and actress Jean Seberg (Breathless).

• Carrer de Joaquín Costa 43, +34 93 317 8130. Open Mon-Thurs 4pm-2.30am, Fri-Sat 4pm-3am

Heliogàbal

Photograph: Albert Pijuan

This combined bar and performance space looked like a badly tended squat when it opened in 1995. Described by its owners as a "space for spreading culture", it has since become a lively Gràcia venue, with poetry readings, book, magazine and fanzine presentations, audiovisual performances and so on. Talking of space, there isn't much, so those wanting a good view should arrive early. The activities on offer are varied enough to warrant a glance at the website before turning up, given that not everything experimental is everyone's cup of tea.

• Carrer de Ramón y Cajal 80, heliogabal.com. Open daily from 9pm

Bauma

Photograph: Salir.com

The Bauma has been a meeting place for groups of writers since it opened in the 1940s, such as the circle of Joan de Sagarra, a notoriously acerbic theatre critic who knew most of the writers, film-makers, singers, artists and journalists in Barcelona towards the wilting end of Franco's unloved reign. This side of the millennium break, a group of poets set up a much-lauded poetry magazine, Poesía 080, here in the Eixample. The place is best in the mornings and early afternoons, when you can sit on its terrace and enjoy a full view of the nearby Casa de les Punxes (Pointy House), designed by Gaudí contemporary Josep Puig i Cadafalch.

• Carrer de Roger de Llúria 124, +34 93 207 5431. Open Mon-Fri, Sun 8am-midnight

Bar l'Astrolabi

Photograph: Astrolabi

Founded by the novelist and anarchist Jordi Cantavella – who can be found behind the bar most nights – l'Astrolabi in Gràcia has become one of the best-known and surely the most fun of the city's live literature venues, in which writers, poets and singer-songwriters can do as they wish, either as part of an organised event or, if there isn't one, by taking the stage at their own risk. Jordi Cantavella lived for several years in the UK, where he developed a taste for Stella Artois, now on draft at the Astrolabi and almost nowhere else in Barcelona.

• Carrer de Martínez de la Rosa 14, myspace.com/lastrolabi. Open Sun-Thur 8.30pm-2.30am, Fri, Sat 8.30pm-3am

Cafè del Centre

Cafè del Centre

Now "discovered" by lovers of untouched modernist bars, for years the Cafè del Centre – which looks like the unlit set of a Toulouse-Lautrec biopic – was one of the best-kept secrets of the Eixample district. The high-ceilinged interior served as a meeting place for Montserrat Roig, the feminist novelist, and Víctor Mora, the creator of the comic-book hero Capitán Trueno and melancholy novels about Barcelona under Franco. Throughout the 1980s, cultural debates and a legendary poetry series took place. Catalan cuisine is served in the evenings, home-cooked by the mother of the present manager (the place has been run by the same family since it opened in 1873).

• Carrer de Girona 69, +34 93 488 1101. Open Mon-Fri 8am-11.30pm

• Matthew Tree has lived in Barcelona since 1984 and is the author of Barcelona, Catalonia: A View from the Inside, matthewtree.cat