For food & drink, Poblenou delivers.
The hook isn't 'Catalan Brooklyn' — it's that Poblenou is where 19th-century factory Barcelona was reinvented by decree: the city's 22@ plan rezoned the old mills into a tech-and-design district, so glass startups now sit beside surviving brick chimneys and the odd Modernista factory like Can Framis (now a museum). Daily life runs along the pedestrian Rambla del Poblenou down to a calmer local beach, with far fewer tourists than the centre. The catch: it's spread out and genuinely short on classic 'sights', so it rewards aimless wandering and a long lunch over any checklist visit.