Wellness Feature – November 2017

The FSA is proud to have partnered with Malibu Farms at our FSA “Inner Circle” at Nobu Eden Roc.  Soon to open, Malibu Farms at Nobu Eden Roc, Miami Beach, exemplifies the farm-to-table movement.  Be sure to experience their healthy culinary delights!

The Story of Malibu Farm

Hi! I’m Helene. I started Malibu Farm a few years ago doing cooking classes and farm dinners out of my home and in my back yard. I now have a casual counter service cafe at the end of the Malibu Pier and a full-service restaurant and bar at the beginning of the pier.

We are not a big corporation or funded by investors; we are a locally-owned small business. Our food is super simply prepared;there are no secret ingredients, and many of you have been to my home picking produce and cooked the very same recipes we use at the cafe.

I use mostly whole wheat flours and whole grains. Lots of veggies and fruits, I love arugula, and I totally believe there is no such a thing as too much lemon. We use no fake food. Margarine, veggie butter, sugar substitutes? What is that stuff? If you don’t know how to make it, or where it comes from, don’t eat it. Don’t buy it.

I don’t use nonfat products, cause nothing makes you fatter than eating fat free. This is a fact. Eat the real thing, or don’t eat it at all.

I grew up fishing, so I love seafood. But let’s not deplete our treasures from the sea! Our portions are small, and we work hard to offer sustainable seafood only.

At my home, we raise free range, fancy, feather-footed chickens, who all have names. We still eat chicken, just really super small portions of it.

We have a pig named Arnold too, who is super cute, super hungry, and super fat. We still eat pork, but shhh, don’t tell him.

I don’t have any cows, and I don’t eat red meat. But we have been known to grill a steak or grass-fed-beef burgers for our guests.

In our early days operating out of my back yard, our mission of local, organic, and fresh was easy. We even raised our own sheep that we served for a farm dinner and used produce exclusively grown on my property for farm events.

Once I opened the café, I hoped to continue using small farmers only and supply from my own back yard farm. The first few months, we used oranges and lemons exclusively from my own trees, and the eggs were from my chickens. I get about 30 eggs per day from my flock, which now is a drop in the bucket compared to the 200 eggs per day we use at the cafe. However, if you are lucky, that egg you are eating, may be one of mine!

We still strive to offer as much local and small farm as we can. From our own farm, we have eggs, persimmons, figs, lemons, pomegranates, apricots, Asian pears, carrots, beets, asparagus, and fresh herbs.

We buy from Larry Thorne…strawberries, oranges, kale, chard, basil, tomatoes and whatever else he has available. From Mike Zacha at Malibu…organic lemons; we get lemons and oranges year-round. All our potatoes and carrots are from Weiser Farms. Tomatoes, in addition to Larry Thorne, come from Tutti Fruitti farms. All our arugula and lettuces come from Maggie’s farm.

We shop every week at the Santa Monica Farmer’s Market, and seek to get the best products available at any given time. We also receive produce from World Wide and Natures Produce, who both pick up our Farmers Market orders, and supply us from their warehouses when we cannot source all locally.

We order everything organic, but none of our local small farmers are certified, and our big suppliers do not deliver 100% organic 100% of the time. I naively thought when I opened on the pier that organics were easy for restaurants to source – they are not. It is a daily and challenging struggle.

However, we are proud of the products that we serve and believe we put the best possible produce available on every dish served.

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