Located on Carrer de les Carretes, Makinavaja is a living tribute to comic artist Ivà and his most famous character, “Makinavaja, el último choriso.” Its owner, Leandro, a lifelong local and anarchist activist, has turned the bar into a stronghold of Raval’s popular and libertarian culture. Although the bar itself opened in 2010, it occupies a space that has housed taverns for over a century, preserving a nearly century-old solid wood bar.

Founded in 1947 just behind the Columbus monument, Pastís was created with the intention of recreating the port bars of Marseille in Barcelona. The venue is tiny barely a slit in the wall yet filled with an existentialist, bohemian atmosphere. Its walls are covered with dark paintings, old photographs, and bottles, creating a space where time seems to have stopped in the postwar years.

Located on Carrer d’en Robador, in the heart of the Raval, 23 Robadors is a small live music venue that has established itself as one of the most distinctive spaces in Barcelona’s recent music scene. It is not a historic bar in chronological terms, but it stands on a street with strong social significance within the neighborhood. From there, it has built its identity around a steady program of intimate flamenco and jazz performances no large stages, no heavy production prioritizing closeness between musicians and audience.

Founded in 1910, London Bar is one of the oldest bars in Barcelona and one of the few in the Raval that still preserves its original modernista décor. Carved wood, mirrors, moldings, lamps, and the spatial layout have remained largely unchanged for over a century. The venue has passed through different stages of the neighborhood’s and the city’s history without being converted or stripped of its interior, making it a rare example of modernisme applied to a popular bar in the Raval.

Opened in 1860, Casa Almirall was founded at the height of the Raval’s industrial boom, when the neighborhood filled with factories, workshops, and a working-class population living in harsh, overcrowded conditions. In that context, cafés and taverns became key spaces of sociability: places where newspapers were read, politics debated, and community woven together. Just across the street stood the headquarters of the CNT, the major anarchist trade union that shaped Barcelona’s labor history, and Casa Almirall was a direct witness to that social fervor. Over glasses of anís, militants and neighbors shared breaks, debates, and everyday life throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.