What makes a place ‘cool’? Is it coffee shops that charge £12 for eggs on toast? Or maybe it’s actually the absence of those overpriced brunch spots? That’s the question that editors across the world set out to answer with our list of the coolest neighborhoods in the world for 2025.
has been recognising the planet’s most trendy places for several years now, so we’ve gotten pretty good at it. Our editors and local experts know their cities inside and out, each nominating a spot in their hometown that locals love but visitors might not yet be aware of.
Every nominee is then ranked in terms of its culture, community, liveability, nightlife, food and drink, street life, and an ineffable sense of ‘nowness’, and voila – a definitive list of the coolest neighborhoods on Earth is created.
In 2024, Marseille’s Notre-Dame-du-Mont took the crown, but this year the gold went to Jimbōchō, a cute little corner of Tokyo brimming with bookshops and excellent curry houses. The top three spots span three continents: Jimbōchō is followed by Borgerhout in Antwerp, and in third place is Barra Funda, the ‘alternative soul’ of Brazil’s São Paulo.
Barra Funda was described by ’s Rio de Janeiro editor Lívia Breves as a place ‘where industrial history meets an undeniably cool and creative vibe’. Old and new intertwine as warehouses are repurposed as art studios or bars and cafés pop up in old car repair shops, or as Breves puts it, ‘in the same block, you’ll find concrete, train tracks and a cult nightclub’.
During your visit, spread your meals between cute cafés and restaurants serving excellent local cuisine, and end your nights drinking cocktails and dancing at trendy bars or recently refurbished clubs.
It’s also a shopping hotspot, ‘a must-visit for art lovers’, and by night a vibrant hub full of ‘DJs, exhibitions and parties’. Plus, the Mendes Wood art gallery has just reopened ‘with an exhibition from contemporary Brazilian artist Paulo Nazareth, exploring themes of motherhood and memory’, so now is the perfect time to visit.
Barra Funda beat out some seriously steep competition to earn its spot, including entries from global centres like London, New York, and Singapore.
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