Ten years ago, the B-word was enough to have taxi drivers hissing at you. Brooklyn was a vast metropolis lying just 500 yards from Manhattan but it may as well have been 5,000 miles away.

New York's most populous borough, home to 2.5 million people speaking 80 different languages, has enjoyed something of a renaissance.

Brooklyn, nowadays a byword for cool, is huge both in breadth and attitude yet intimate in its neighbourhoods and sense of community. For the plucky first-timer (that's me), it represents a real slice of the city: the tough and gritty gal next door living in the shadow of its glamorous neighbour across the water.

I had watched Tony Manero (aka John Travolta) strutting his way through Bay Ridge in Saturday Night Fever, a neurotic Woody Allen at Coney Island in Annie Hall. I expected relics of old-time working neighbourhoods, I expected Brooklynites with gruff manners who shout at you as soon as slap you on the back. I expected people drinking on their stoops, children playing basketball, ice cream trucks and carnivals. That's what I got. But I also got the gentrified borough, whole streets transformed from grungy corridors into stylish quarters.

My first foray into modish Brooklyn was in Park Slope at the Hotel Le Bleu. At first glance you'd be forgiven for thinking it was anything but a shady roadside motel but beyond the facade is a souped-up, über trendy room just minutes from chi chi 5th Avenue and a few blocks from Prospect Park, making it a solid option for overnighting.

When the Central Park architects created Brooklyn's bucolic oasis, Prospect Park, it was meant to mirror its rectangular sibling to the west – lake, zoo, even vintage carousel included. But, being Brooklyn, it has a sort of untamed quality with two of the city's finest draws – the Brooklyn Museum of Art and the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens.

You don't have to stray far from Park Slope's sleepy streets to find Brooklyn bustle. From the well-positioned and supremely comfortable Marriott at Brooklyn Bridge, a five-minute walk will take you to Dumbo (Down Under The Manhattan Bridge Overpass) where the noise of overhead traffic rumbles through the cobblestone streets. It was here that artists flocked in the '80s, drawn by the warehouse loft spaces. Don't miss the Dumbo Arts Centre, which promotes the work of local artists. Nearby is Powerhouse Arena selling quirky cards and books, funky nightclub Galapagos, stylish boutique Blueberri and celebrated chocolaterie Jacques Torres, where the smell of a key lime ganache had me doing my best Pavlov's dog impression at the window.

Although I hear River Café is worth the splurge, we repaired to the snaking queue at Grimaldi's Pizzeria under the bridge. Brooklyn's answer to the soup nazi stands outside, all silver-haired, all Italian, all knowing. He fixes you with a look, points and says "You, how many?" If you're missing the rest of your mob, bad a bing, "no pizza for you". They don't muck around. A bite of this brick-oven thin-crust pizza and you'll see why. Some say its reputation rests on the dough, whose crucial ingredient is rumoured to be Brooklyn water – whatever that means. But it's probably got to do with the fact that it's one of the few pizza restaurants in New York that's allowed to still use coal. They go through 25,000 tonnes of it a month, heating the oven to 900 degrees, the result being a perfect pizza in just three minutes flat.

From Grimaldi's, walk along the Brooklyn Heights Promenade and marvel at one of the best New York photo ops that sweeps from the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge to lower Manhattan and the Brooklyn Bridge. Behind the esplanade are Brooklyn's brownstone backyards, a magnet for filmmakers and writers. The coterie of literary and cinematic icons that have hailed from this corner of the city is staggering. Woody Allen once said that where he grew up in Brooklyn, nobody committed suicide, everyone was too unhappy. And yes, most of them left but Brooklyn never left them, popping up now and again in films, books and TV shows.

Nearby Smith Street, a former decaying strip, is now a hub of activity also known as Brooklyn's restaurant row. Café-cum-gallery-cum-vintage shop, Robin des Bois, hip hangout Bar Tabac, all filled with a stylish set that have come to represent the local scene.

Smith Street isn't just a culinary corridor, it paves the way for the stretch of vintage and antique shops on Atlantic Avenue. From gilded birdcages in Darr to beautiful menswear at Hollander and Lexer, just try to resist.

From here continue on to the Brooklyn Bridge: the backdrop to countless screen kisses – no visit to the city is complete without a walk across this national treasure, tagged locally as the eighth wonder of the world. If you don't feel like the walk, hop on a bike from Battery Park courtesy of Blazing Saddles and feel the wind through your hair as you freewheel over the river.

The more adventurous can hire kayaks from the waterfront park below the bridge and in the summer months, the park plays host to a giant movie screen where you'll get to watch Woody Allen talking to lower Manhattan with Lady Liberty in the background, and all for free.

Just one L-train stop from Manhattan is Williamsburg, a bohemian nexus where stylish twentysomethings strut and kids sell lemonade from makeshift stands.

Stroll around Bedford Avenue, Grand Street and North Sixth and you'll find all manner of cool-cat shops and funky thrift stores: Pema, Moon River Chattel, Bird and Brooklyn Industries amongst them.

A few blocks from Bedford, on North 11th Street, artists are beavering away behind steel doors and red-bricked buildings at Pierogi 2000 and Causey Contemporary galleries. Across the road, queues are forming outside the beloved Brooklyn Bowl and Brewery for that evening's music show. Beyond is a ribbon of green, Brooklyn's East River Park, an iconic spot to savour the skyline.

Back on North 10th Street, a street party is underway. In the kind of happy culture clash synonymous with Brooklyn, we join in, two more Irish to make up a disparate New York tribe on a beer buzz in 'Billyburg's' backstreets, stumbling off a few hours later for our dinner at Diner, where we ate in the din of the 1920s Pullman train car.

Next day, I hit the Slice of Brooklyn Tour with Paula, our 'delightfully mouthy' guide. If ever there was a dyed-in-the-wool Brooklynite, here she was, telling us not to 'schlep our stuff', and to 'fuhgetaboudit'. From Grimaldi's thin crust and L&B Spumoni's Sicilian slice to Bath Beach's crime families and Coney Island's 87-year-old roller coaster, we got to experience it all with fantastic running commentary from Paula, showing clips on her DVD from movies shot in various neighbourhoods.

"You know the F-word is used 496 times in Goodfellas," she says outside a blue garage in Bay Ridge, the same blue garage belonging to Joe Pesci in the movie. "My family counted, Joe Pesci used 480 of them," she laughs.

Later that evening, I'm sitting in Café Habana, Fort Greene, when up on the screen John Travolta starts his strut down 86th Street in Saturday Night Fever. He stops at Lenny's Pizza, orders two slices then proceeds to eat them at the same time. "Brooklynites don't do that," whispers the guy beside me to his companion. "You never double stack your pie." His friend leans over, "Travolta's from Jersey."

I realised then that while Manhattan belongs to everyone, Brooklyn has always belonged to Brooklynites. You go to meet it, not the other way around. It doesn't gift-wrap every experience – the real, the raw and the edgy is there for you to discover. But one thing's for sure, it is firmly itself.

Was it what I had hoped for? Manhattan... fuhgetaboudit.

NYC's Hip Hoods

Meatpacking District

The former distribution centre of Manhattan's meat market is now a creative hub crowded with bars, bistros and flagship stores of global designers. Breakfast in Pastis, hit the Asian food emporium, the Spice Market for lunch and round off the evening with dinner at STK steakhouse.

East Village

A wide variety of watering holes and a down-to-earth vibe gives it the edge over its western counterpart. If you're after icons of East Village boozemanship, try PDT, where you enter through an old phone booth into a saloon serving swanky cocktails. When you've drunk your own body weight in brew, head over to Artichoke Basille's Pizza on E 14th and grab yourself a slice for the stumble home.

Harlem

Go for the gospel on Sunday mornings at Mount Neboh Church and the sultry jazz at legendary institution, Lenox Lounge, the place that launched some of the world's heavyweight hepcats including Billie Holiday and Miles Davis.

Chelsea

A haven for galleries and haute restaurants with the Chelsea food market being the main draw. The best way to get a feel for neighbourhood culture is to wander down 26th and Tenth to 19th and Eleventh taking in some 200 galleries. Afterwards, nip over to El Quinto Pino on
W 24th for tasty tapas.

Chinatown

The largest Chinatown outside of Asia, you'll find exotic cuisine, bargains and bling in this bustling pocket. When sensory overload kicks in, take solace at the Eastern States Buddhist Temple on Mott Street, home to 100 golden Buddhas or better still, experience an authentic Thai foot massage from Melanie's Body and Foot Massage, 126 Lafayette Street.