Camp & Furnace, Launch Night and First Impressions

I recently wrote about a few places on a trip to London, eulogising about the new wave of good value and good quality food, the current austere times pushing people away from michelin style food to something a lot kinder on the wallet. I, perhaps, got a bit over excited with my piece about Pitt Cue Co, the best restaurant in the country is an unanswerable debate, but currently it’s the restaurant I would return to over any other, and that makes it pretty damn good in my book. Liverpool I feel is currently experiencing this same dinning phase, Leaf on bold street is always full and the newly opened Luca Libre is somewhere I really like. Further to this, Camp and Furnace has just opened its doors at the end of Jamaica Street in the Baltic Quarter. A sort of mixed used space with an art gallery, cafe/restaurant/eatery, bar and event space, thats not to mention the soon to open luxury vintage caravan camping hotel.

I was lucky enough to be invited to the opening night event, including some food and a few live bands. I wont pass any comment on the music, not because it wasn’t good, but because my iPod currently features some quite shocking musical choices (Spandau Ballet anyone?) and I’m not sure my opinion counts for anything.

The food on the other hand, I’ll happily waffle on about, regardless of the weight of my opinion. Steven Burgess of Rhubarb and Custard is food and beverage manager and he has managed to easily fit C&F into this new style of cheap but great quality food. This night we were treated to chorizo scotch eggs that were fantastic and a great welsh rarebit with smoked tomato, the later being a really fantastic surprise. The sticky ribs were good and I ate about 10 of them, the three different salmons; gravlax, beetroot cured and hot smoked (all done on the premises) were all nice.

Overall it was a great night, I really like the venue, its approach to food and the fact its trying something a bit different. I liked it so much that I went back the next day for lunch and had a great chorizo burger.

If you are looking for something a bit different, C&F is a great place to visit, good food, good atmosphere and very friendly. Keep an eye on its website for future events or just pop in, its open for breakfast lunch and dinner.