Malibu

A house and garden on the point between Malibu Pier and the lagoon, covered inside and out in Malibu tile, with carved teak doors and bottle-glass windows. The grounds are free and open from eight in the morning until sunset, and you can walk them without going inside. The small museum next to the house is free as well and the guided walk through the house costs seven dollars.

Grounds daily 8am to sunset. Museum Wednesday to Saturday 11am to 3pm. House tours Wednesday to Saturday, on the hour 11am to 2pm. Closed in rain

Christopher Tompkins started the company as a mobile raw bar and opened this counter in 2019. Malibu is the flagship and, by his own account, the strongest of the five. The butter-poached lobster roll is the order, alongside soft-shell crab sandwiches and seafood platters. The building came through the Palisades Fire, though the closures around it cost the business more days than its first five and a half years combined.

Daily 11am to 8pm.

Named for Duke Kahanamoku, who taught surfing in Malibu and appeared in more than twenty-eight films. Kathy Kohner Zuckerman, the real Gidget, works here as Ambassador of Aloha. There is a casual Barefoot Bar side with island plates and tropical drinks and a separate dining side doing fish and steak. Hula Pie is the dessert everyone orders.

Lunch daily 11:30am to 4pm. Dinner Sunday to Thursday 4pm to 8:30pm, Friday and Saturday to 9pm.

A narrow counter tucked into the Malibu Country Mart on Cross Creek, making sandwiches to order out of a case of cold cuts and a stack of bread. The sandwiches are wrapped in paper and eaten on the benches in the courtyard outside. It closes at five, which tells you it is a daytime operation and always has been.

Daily, 9:30am to 5pm

The landward end of Malibu Pier, with an indoor dining area and a bar and patio side that serves the same menu. This is the Restaurant, not the Pier Cafe out at the far end, which California State Parks closed in January 2025 for structural repairs and has not reopened.

Sunday to Friday 9am to 8pm. Saturday 9am to 9pm. The operator notes hours may be cut short on rainy days.

A fish market on the inland side of PCH since 1972, owned and run by commercial fishermen, with a counter at one end and a tiered concrete patio looking over the water at the other. You order at the window, carry a tray up the steps and find a bench. There is no table service and no reservations.

Cafe daily 11am to 8pm. Fish market daily 10am to 8:30pm

On the water on the Malibu side of PCH, part of the Nobu Ryokan property, with a bar and lounge alongside the dining area. It was one of the few businesses on its stretch of highway that the Palisades Fire left standing. It shut in January 2025 and has been trading since.

Sunday to Thursday noon to 10pm. Friday and Saturday noon to 11pm. The reservation line only answers 10am to 5pm.

Thirty-five years in the back corner of the Malibu Country Mart, away from the parking lot. Grilled octopus, taramasalata, whole branzino and lamb, indoors and on a large patio. Zane and Elisa Koss have now run it through the Woolsey Fire, the pandemic and the Palisades Fire; it closed in January 2025 while PCH was shut and reopened remodeled.

Three sources disagree. The landlord lists noon to 9pm daily; other listings open at 11:30am and run to 11pm on Friday and Saturday. Call (310) 317-9667 before you plan around a closing time.