The holy triumvirate of music, food, and beer combines at new hangout Campfire.
If you’ve ever felt the urge to plunge into the wilderness to live free and feast on wood-fired cooking every night, but aren’t quite ready to give up the London lifestyle just yet, then a compromise has just emerged. Tucked away in a freight container yard between Holloway and Kings Cross, you’ll find Campfire, the excellent new open-air venue from Two Tribes Brewing. Having invested in a satisfyingly huge firepit (which I must own, when I have enough disposable income) and teamed up with BBQ whizzes From The Ashes, Two Tribes have turned an old carpark into one of the city’s best hangouts.
Beers + fire + BBQ is a well-trodden path, but when it’s done to this level of skill and commitment, it becomes something truly great. Having outgrown their taproom prior to lockdown, Two Tribes founder Justin Deighton elected to create an outdoor bar for the summer season. A couple of shipping containers, plenty of seating, and one firepit later, they’ve created a nifty courtyard that’s perfect for all weathers (and thus essential for a British summer).
The bar is well-stocked with Two Tribes’ range of beers, and given that they represented our first drinks out since December, we sampled Quite A Lot of them. Their Metroland session IPA was a crowdpleaser, but handily for the coeliac crowd, it was their gluten-free lager Powerplant that scooped our vote as the best beer of the evening. With a menu of ten excellent beers on tap, Campfire isn’t really a place where you can make a bad choice – and that extends to the food, too.
From The Ashes BBQ have made waves for their dizzyingly good BBQ dishes, served out of a hatch in Hackney Wick since their inception during the first lockdown. Very intelligently, Two Tribes have snapped them up for the inaugural residency at Campfire, and the food we sampled proved it to be a very wise choice. The cult Nduja ‘Del Piero’ Doughnuts, filled with smoked pork, house made chilli jam, BBQ sauce and Nduja, lived up to every inch of the Instagram hype. Don’t skip the slow-smoked ribs or vegan corn ribs, either.
As part of their commitment to pairing top beers with incredible open-fire cooking, Campfire will host a rotating cast of UK and international chefs. If there’s nothing better for chefs than the thrill of cooking over an open fire, then let us tell you that there’s no better thrill as a customer than eating all that food!
With the beers and food locked down, Campfire has one last magical ingredient to entice you along for an evening: the music. Former resident DJ at Ibiza’s Cafe Del Mar and Bali’s Potato Head Beach Club, Peter Herbert, will be organising the music talent here, including visits from top DJs and record labels, along with exclusive and intimate performances. The venue also plans to host album previews and secret concerts, so you’ll want to be first in line (and beer in hand) for those. Honestly, Campfire is everything we need after a long year of lockdowns!
Find Campfire at Tileyard, with the main entrance located off Tileyard Road. Nearest stations are Caledonian Road and Caledonian Road & Barnsbury.