Down the creaky pier planks and past the buckets of bait:
surfers to the North and Paddle Boarders to the South, and across from the
tackle shop, Helene Henderson’s “MALIBU FARM@ the pier” opened at the Malibu
Pier on Friday morning, kicking off a HOT Malibu Labor Day weekend.

Smart and spanking new the cafe's white clapboard boathouse appearance, blue trimmed windows and potted lavendar plants will simply charm. The cafe's straightforward sign resembling a school house chalkboard with the welcoming words: "MALIBU FARM@the pier" beckons the discriminating aesthete, the curiously hungry and the stubborn foody seekers.  Inside, steel ship
gray painted windowsills, solid wooden tables and zinc trimmed light fixtures, chairs and counter will warm the heart. Under a boathouse window a bucket of loose flowers
capture the morning light.  On an opposite wall hangs a
seasoned handmade magazine “rack” made of corkscrew holes to keep a grip on rolled
up local journals.  The interior and
exterior of “Malibu Farm @the pier” is a visual natural as it blends into and
complements our Malibu Pier and casual lifestyle. Its style authentically hearkens a classically simple Swedish boathouse
that yacht and fisherpersons, sailors and sea lubbers embrace. Surfers will
dig it too.

The Scandinavian feel of the café and its menu cannot be left to coincidence,
for it is in Sweden that Ms. Henderson spent much of her youth acquiring a keen
understanding of food and its’ preparations while cooking and baking alongside
her Swedish grandmother. Smart grandmother, for Ms. Henderson has a gift and if
you don’t believe me, pick up a copy of “The Swedish Table,”(U. of MN Press,
2005), penned by Henderson herself. 

Henderson is something of a legend in Malibu, supported by a
legion of “MALIBU FARM” devotees. Culinary students, mothers and
children, husbands and friends, the plainspoken and outspoken, all have feasted
on the hearty farm to table dishes made up of ingredients from Henderson’s backyard
and crafted with her healthy and elegant know-how. Her varied clientele is a
testimony to this chef’s cooking mantra of “fresh, organic, and local.” I’ll add:
tasty, light, original, and satisfying. I am assured Henderson's commitment to good food will not be compromised by the canon of press and magnanimous public positioning her MALIBU FARM warrants. She will stay loyal to the humility of her cooking style.

Now that Chef Henderson has brought in son Casper Stockwell to secure
the ranks, and his special cocktail concoctions once dinner is introduced, one can’t help but delight in the possibilities the café will
provide. Breakfast! Lunch! Eventually dinner! Fresh watermelon juice, quinoa
oatmeal with maple syrup and coconut milk, Swedish mini pancakes with whipped
cream and berries! Crab cakes and capers aioli! Valkommen!