Swedish-born chef and Californian resident Helene Henderson opened Malibu Farm Cafe and Malibu Farm Restaurant and Bar when the dinners she served on her two-acre farm outgrew their intimate setting. Her new project, Malibu Farm Cookbook: Recipes from the California Coast, explores the best of the west's terroir, terrain, and ingredients, which she also shows off in this tour of her town below.
MALIBU, California – I love the rural, small town atmosphere of Malibu, where summer is endless and world-class beaches, organic farms, and vineyards are easy to access. My husband is a surfer and had always wanted to live here, so we flipped houses and saved money until we could make the move a reality. We live in Point Dume, a neighborhood with two-acre lots of land. Many homes have horses, barns, and vineyards. One of the things I love most is that everyone has a backyard farm of some sort. Vegetable beds are the norm rather than the exception, and everyone has bees — or at least they want to get bees. We started Malibu Farm because the property we bought had a barn and corral, so we got farm animals to use it. Our hillside was perfect for grapes, so we planted a vineyard. Our lower hillside was covered in weeds, but when we cleared and cleaned it, we uncovered a fruit orchard which we restored. And, well — the rest is history.
