I’ve been living in Barcelona for several years and although taken for granted in most cities, the humble croissant of the french butter style is rarer in Barcelona that a real Madrid football fan. Tucked away on the quiet pedestrian street behind calle Princesa is the home of the Croissanteria Frances. When I first stumbled upon it I was happy as can be, it was a Saturday morning and I picked up some along with the most delicious chocolate and cream pastries and some danish. With your stash of fresh pastries on board, next step is surely where to go for coffee and shamelessly eat what are the best quality and best value croisssants and co. in town.

You can’t say a lot about a bike shops. I only mention this one for a couple of reasons. The ubiquitous folding bike seems to be everywhere these days and for the discerning Barcelonese commuter there are none better than the Brompton,  and these guys are Brompton specialists. The next reason is that in my all dealings they’ve displayed admirable honesty, appear to be very knowledgeable and pretty cheap to boot. Finally, for the princely sum of 20 cents, they provide use of an automatic pump that is available to all at the front of the shop. With many buildings not having elevators and Barcelona being such a great city for cycling, Bike Tech is a good destination to get yourself some portable wheels.

Although ‘Pretty Ballerinas’ sounds like an American brand, it is 100% Spanish owned by the third generation of the Mascaró family from Mallorca.

As the name does indicate however, Pretty Ballerinas are ballet flats (or manoletes as they are known here). Prices are not that cheap, but the quality and design make them great investment pieces.

The flagship Pretty Ballerina is situated in the upmarket Rambla Catalunya. Fittingly, it’s very bijou (no more than five people can fit at the time) but you’ll find the entire collection there. The decoration is very feminine, maybe with an excess of pink but totally different from majority of shoe shops.

Pretty Ballerinas is well worth visiting for girls looking for a trendy and comfortable between season shoes

In a relatively short time, Anna Figuera Delgado and Macarena Ramos Buil – the creative minds behind the fashion label El Delgado Buil – have taken Spanish fashion world by storm. Who knows for how much longer their global HQ will remain in this lovely taller-showroom-shop in the Barri Gótic? Their cutting edge clothing is beautifully-tailored (in a deconstructed sort of way) and made of the finest materials in their trademark nude and pastel colours. In their shop they often have samples and a few one-offs at good prices, and sometimes you’ll be attended to by the lovely Anna and Macarena themselves.

For those who resist downloading (legal or not) for whatever reasons, El Papaya Verde is your answer to the increasingly reality show-saturated state of Spanish TV. Not only does El Papaya Verde rents out a huge collection of documentaries, indie, auteur and underground films (oh, and there’s a bit of porn as well), but is right up on its TV series. If you missed the last episode of Lost, desperate to watch Desperate Housewives without the ad breaks or addicted to Mad Men you’ll find them all here, tucked away behind the cathedral.

The Mercat de l’Abaceria Central is great to visit on a Saturday morning when it hustles and bustles and bristles with life. I’m very enamoured with the idea that this fresh food market is still thriving, despite the fact that there is no shortage of supermarkets or convenience stores in Gràcia. Anyone who has been to a mercat in Barcelona knows exactly what to expect, and this one is no different.

The stallholders really know their onions (or apples or eggs or fish or chickens) and generally sell their goods at a great price. To find
out what’s in season in advence, have a look at the market’s website which has a handy Calendari de les Hortalisses i les Verdures. For a
real taste of local life, the Gràcia market can’t be beat.

I’m all for the traditional Sunday roast, so when I got to Barcelona and discovered that there was more delicious ways of roasting chickens (spit roasting) I was delighted. How happy am I for this particular tradition. Rotisserías abound in Gràcia but this one is my favourite. The chickens, and rabbits as it happens, are always cooked to perfection; I suspect that a correlation between the popularity of a place and succulence of the meat exists. It maybe my imagination but I’m pretty sure that they get more flavoursome the closer to the bottom of the rack too. Chickens cost €8 and rabbits €14.

Even if Catalan designer Josep Font’s clothing weren’t so exquisite, his shop would be worth visiting anyway. Unlike other top fashion labels whose shops in the Eixample have been gutted and fitted out with their corporate image, Font has taken a more holistic approach by leaving the original florid-tile flooring, employed very modernista jewel colours in the décor and added sprinkling of gilt-edge mirrors and chandeliers (overall it feels more like a set design than a fashion boutique). Font’s cutting-edge creations for women are simply sublime. Using the finest fabrics, a touch of the theatrical and yet highly feminine, this is a place to go for that statement piece or vintage-inspired wedding dress.

I don’t believe there is a shop like this anywhere else in the city. Picture a store filled with every sporting curiosity you’ve every imagined, and some you had no idea even existed, and you would be about half way to describing this place. Everything from skis, to golf clubs, to sub-aquatic gear is available here. The owner, a gentleman by the name of Albert, is the grandson of the original owner who opened it in the early 1920s. Half-museum and half-shop, whether you have any interest in sport or not, you absolutely have to take a look at this place.

I don’t know of any other 2^nd hand English bookshops in Barcelona and I’m delighted to have this one so close by. The atmosphere is convivial and relaxed and the staff has a quasi-encyclopaedic knowledge of the stock. They’re more than happy to order books for you too, and I’ve yet to stump them on any of more esoteric requests.  Mind you, there is no shortage of titles to chose from and all very much up to date. They’ve also got a small foreign language section – French, German, Italian but no Catalan or Spanish

You can pick up a book from €1, all the way through to full price for some of the new titles they stock, but the average seems to hover around the €4 mark.