ABOUT
Opening: September 2016
Address: 2725 State St, Carlsbad, CA 92008
Website: https://thisiscampfire.com/
Owner: John Resnick
Architect: Aero Collective
Designer: Bells & Whistles
CONCEPT
Campfire is an independent restaurant that offers a modernist take on camping culture by celebrating the communal aspect of sitting around a campfire. Owner and general manager John Resnick’s vision is a return to the origins of cooking and hospitality where he creates seasonal food on a fire that can be shared with friends and family.
Guests enter the restaurant and walk straight up to the glass walled kitchen and 25 seat bar.
On an oak-fueled custom wood grill, executive chef Andrew Bachelier roasts, grills, chars, smokes, sears or blisters fish, meat and vegetables.
Going with the wood-fired concept and creating a synergy between the front- and back-house, a section of the cocktail menu is completely devoted to ingredients from the fire. Cocktails are made with roasted beets, grilled pineapple and plums cooked in embers.
TREND
Celebrating the simple life – Seasonal and local ingredients – Show
The consumer is searching for unique experiences and extreme customization, which has led restaurant concepts to shift from offering a service, to offering an experience. If your food is prepared on an open-flame wood-grill in a closed kitchen, eating the food is less exciting, than if you are able to watch it be prepared on the same open-flame wood-grill in an open kitchen.
This, as well as 'active dishes' like the S'mores where guests roast their own marshmallows on ember at their table, encourages guests to post their experience on social media, which in turn, increases the restaurant’s audience.
The ingredient list of foods in the supermarket has become so confusing over the last decade, that consumers are asking for more clean food options. Knowing that their food is made up of basic ingredients, cooked on an open fire - the oldest and most basic way known for cooking - the consumer feels reassured that the food he eats is clean and safe.
Grilled Brassica: with Korean chili vinaigrette, burrata and yeast
Roasted whole fish: Market fish with gigante beans, spring onion, lemon and artichoke
S’mores: Graham crackers, salted caramel chocolate, homemade marshmallows served on ember
DESIGN
Bells and Whistles is an award-winning Los Angeles based interior design firm specializing in commercial spaces including restaurants and bars. So far, almost all of their projects are in California.