Exclusives
Julianne Beffa
Inside Malibu Food & Wine: The Ultimate Foodie Weekend
Three days, dozens of chefs, endless pours and plenty of reasons to stay for another round. Missed Malibu Food & Wine? Here’s what went down at Saddlerock Ranch, from the standout dishes and celebrity sightings to the drinks worth talking about.
- By: Ani Gutierrez | Photos: Craig Hattori, John Troxell & Vivien Killilea/GettyImages
If your idea of the perfect weekend involves eating your way through Malibu, discovering new drinks and keeping an eye out for renowned chefs, Malibu Food & Wine was the place to be. Over three days, Saddlerock Ranch turned into a playground for foodies, celebrity chefs, winemakers and the kind of crowd that appreciates a really good pour.
The second annual Malibu Food & Wine, founded by Marcel Vigneron and Lauren Rae Levy, moved from a dressed-up Friday night dinner, to an Italian-inspired Saturday and finished off with a Sunday country cookout. Each day came with its own personality, while still keeping the food and drinks at the center of it all.
From fresh bites by acclaimed chefs and California pours around every corner, to live-fire cooking, tequila cocktails and beer gardens, there was enough happening across the ranch to make a single lap feel nearly impossible.
I attended on Sunday, when the festival turned into a country cookout complete with sundresses, wine tasting, live music and enough food to make you question whether you actually had room for one more bite. I came hungry, and by the end of the afternoon, I had a new list of drinks I was already thinking about trying again.
Beyond the food and drinks, the festival also gives back, benefiting the Boys & Girls Club of Malibu and creating opportunities for the next generation of culinary talent through CCAP Los Angeles.
To really understand Malibu Food & Wine, though, you have to start at the beginning…
Friday
The weekend opened with the type of night that made you want to put on your best dress.
Hosted by Charlize Theron in support of the Charlize Theron Africa Outreach Project, the opening dinner brought together chefs Andrew Zimmern, Bryan Voltaggio, Michael Voltaggio, and festival co-founder Vigneron for an intimate five-course, farm-to-table dinner. Each course was paired with selections from Marine Layer Wines, with cocktails, bite-sized pairings and culinary demonstrations filling out the evening.
Between courses from Zimmern, the Voltaggios, and Vigneron, guests enjoyed live culinary demonstrations and tray-passed bites, while the Minta Spencer Collective provided the soundtrack throughout the evening, keeping things intimate as dinner moved into the night.
Friday brought out a notable crowd, with Adam Richman, Melissa Cohen Biden, Kyle Rudolph, R’Bonney Gabriel, Rhoda Magbitang, Rebecca Reid, Rupert Sanders and Norman Seeff among those attending.
Saturday
Italian Night, hosted by Man v. Food star Adam Richman, brought an especially stacked group of chefs to Saddlerock Ranch, including Mei Lin, Stephanie Izard, Tobias Dorzon, Jonathon Sawyer, Chris Oh, Brian Redzikowski, Nick Devries, Spike Mendelsohn, Nikki Martin, Oren Zroya and Karlo Evaristo.
Saturday was where the festival really leaned into the fun of watching some of the most elaborate dishes come to life right in front of you. Redzikowski and Devries of Kettner Exchange drew a crowd with their live bluefin tuna carving before turning the fish into small plates, while the cannoli bar satisfied guests’ need for a sweet treat with freshly filled cannoli and dangerously customizable toppings. There was also food critic Sophie Gayot’s blindfolded champagne sabering, adding another unexpected moment to the night.
Then there was the Truffle Boys x Cazcanes Tequila x Capri Gelato & Coffee collaboration, which may have been one of the weekend’s most appropriately indulgent combinations. The truffle, caviar and tequila pairing was exactly the kind of combination that made the festival feel like way more than just a standard food-and-wine event.
As a certified tequila girl, I don’t hand out compliments lightly, but Cazcanes immediately earned a spot among some of the better tequilas I’ve tasted. Truffle and caviar met tequila cocktails, frozen palomas, espresso martinis, affogatos and gelato (naturally) finished with shaved truffles and caviar.
Saturday’s crowd included Victoria Justice, Madison Grace Reed, Oliver English, Christel Khalil, Talia Perez, Catherine Lidstone, Tara Strong, Kathleen Herles, Emanuela Postacchini and James Perse, while DJ EQUAL and LEMMO kept the energy high into the night. By the time they took over, Italian Night had fully shifted from dinner into a proper Saturday night out.
Sunday
By the time the country cookout rolled around on Sunday, the mood had completely shifted.
The festival had transformed from Saturday night’s Italian dinner-party energy, into something much more relaxed: families, sundresses, country music, and a whole lot of food happening across the ranch.
We were handed GoVino glasses almost immediately, which became our ticket to taste our way through the festival. Instead of sitting down somewhere and committing to one meal, we wandered. Wine here, bite there, another drink a few steps later. Everywhere you looked, there was another food station, a celebrity chef, an eye-catching activation, and another group laughing with a drink in hand.
It genuinely felt like a family cookout, just with significantly better food (sorry Granny).
Another sight to see?: the dress code was fully understood. The ranch was filled with country-inspired looks, so naturally, my cow-print dress finally got its moment to shine. It was exactly the right outfit for an afternoon of wine tasting and country music in Malibu.
Sunday’s culinary lineup included Brian Malarkey, Carlos Anthony, Elizabeth Falkner, Lee Anne Wong, Matt Pittman, Rhoda Magbitang, Jack Hotchkin, Nikki Martin, Spike Mendelsohn, Viet Pham and Vinnie Cimino, with barbecue, live-fire cooking and elevated takes on cookout classics spread throughout the grounds.
What I noticed most was how often people kept circling back. You’d grab something, keep walking, see another dish and suddenly decide you had room for one more. Then another…and another. It felt like the festival never really asked you to stop and have one singular experience, it encouraged you to keep moving and discovering what your taste buds could witness next.
That made day drinking feel almost too easy.
Wine lovers had plenty to work with. Sunday featured pours from Smith Story Wine Cellars, Fat Dragon, Dutcher Crossing Winery, Malibu Wines, Malibu Wine Company, Big Salt, Lyons Vineyard Estate, TOR Napa Valley, AXR Napa Valley, Summer Somewhere Wines and Williams Selyem, plus Domaine Carneros, Bouchaine Vineyards and Firetree Family Vineyards through the Carneros Wine Alliance.
The best part was how naturally the wine fit into the food experience.
There wasn’t really a separation between “wine tasting” and “eating.” You could taste a new wine, grab a bite, keep walking and discover another amazing pairing without ever feeling like you were following a strict itinerary.
It was basically the ultimate foodie adventure.
While the wine program was a major part of the day, some of the drinks I was most excited to discover were actually outside of the traditional wine tasting lineup.
The Sandy Brew Beer Garden was one of my repeated stops. The Malibu-founded, women-owned brand created by Kelly Furano shared its Blonde Pilsner and Daze IPA, and there was something particularly fitting about drinking a Malibu-born beer in an aesthetically-pleasing can while wandering around a ranch on a sunny Sunday.
Then there was T’Maro, the spirit from chef Elizabeth Falkner and beverage industry veteran Heather Freyer. The duo created the spirit around one very specific ingredient: the date. I got to try it at Falkner’s booth, where she was making little date shakes with the spirit. It was easily one of those “wait, what is this?” discoveries that made wandering the festival worth it. As a date lover who already uses dates to naturally sweeten things, tasting them transformed into a spirit was something I had never experienced before, and a discovery I was actually very excited about.
That was one of my favorite parts of the day: actually talking to the people behind the brands and getting to taste products alongside the food they were meant to complement.
A country cookout needs a soundtrack, and Sunday definitely had one. Will Worden and Lizzy Passion & The Cowboy Assassins kept the main stage bumping throughout the afternoon, giving the whole ranch a live-country backdrop that made the endless food and wine feel even more like a proper day party.
Around the ranch, there were butterfly experiences from FlutterBy, donkey rides, cornhole and a kids’ coloring station, while the Just Ice Tea Lounge returned with chef-curated pairings from Spike Mendelsohn. Soho House also brought its Specialty Bar, and the Gaia Herbs Non-Alcoholic Mixology Experience gave the non-drinkers a reason to join in on the fun.
The guest list was another reminder of just how much of an insider affair Malibu Food & Wine has become, with Olivia Wilde, Adam Richman, Rocky Barnes, Hunter Biden and Melissa Cohen Biden, Tara Strong, Sibley Scoles, Ashley Alexiss, Lindsey Pelas, Timothy Granaderos, Cisco Adler, Margie Plus, Harald Austad, Ahmet Zappa and Shana Muldoon Zappa spotted at the Sunday festivities.
The real appeal of Malibu Food & Wine is that it never felt like three versions of the same event. Each day had its own reason to stay awhile, whether that meant discovering a new wine, tequila or beer brand, tasting your way through dishes from renowned chefs, catching live music or simply spending a few hours wandering the ranch with a drink in hand.
Maybe that’s what makes Malibu Food & Wine worth attending. You’re never really done exploring. There’s always another chef to find, another pour to try, another drink you haven’t heard of yet and, inevitably, another round to go back for. We came hungry, stayed awhile, and left with new favorites.
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