Where to eat at and around Malibu Beach Inn
The hotel has one restaurant, Carbon Beach Club, with a terrace suspended over the sand: breakfast from 7am to 11am every day, lunch on weekdays and brunch at weekends from 11am to 4pm, dinner from 4pm to 9pm (10pm on Friday and Saturday), a weekday happy hour at the bar from 3pm to 6pm and in-room dining round the clock. Beyond it, Pacific Coast Highway has almost nothing worth a table within a ten-minute walk: Malibu Farm on the pier is four minutes away and Nobu seven. Everything else here is a drive of 2 to 11 minutes on clear roads, so you will want a car or a taxi, and most kitchens close by 9pm, so eat early.
On our shortlists
Close by, on foot or by car
- 4 min walk
Farm-to-table restaurant on Malibu Pier · $$$
The only full-service restaurant on the pier, with a dining room on one side of the entrance and a bar and patio on the other, both serving the full menu. It opens at 9am every day of the year and closes at 8pm, or 9pm on Saturday. Daytime is first come, first served, with a wait of about 20 minutes on sunny weekends from noon to 3pm. Dinner can be booked from 4:30pm, with a request for inside or outside. The patio umbrellas come down in wind above 10 mph. The café at the far end of the pier is temporarily closed.
Reserve ahead23000 Pacific Coast Highway
- 7 min walk
Nobu Matsuhisa's Japanese restaurant · $$$$
The best-known table on this stretch of coast, seven minutes' walk east. For a first visit the kitchen suggests three or more of the Eight Highlights, two or three cold dishes first, then hot ones, then sushi and dessert, all shared. Black cod with miso is $50, the Nobu Signature Menu $175 and the omakase $225. The dining room is open from noon to 10pm, and to 11pm on Friday and Saturday. Book online or by phone on +1 310 317 9140; the sushi bar and the bar and lounge take walk-ins on a waitlist, and a no-show costs $50 a head.
Reserve ahead22706 Pacific Coast Highway
- 2 min by car
All-day Californian café, from 8am · $$
The brand's first full-service restaurant and a Cross Creek Road fixture for more than three decades, two minutes by car for a proper cooked breakfast. It opens at 8am and serves breakfast, lunch and dinner all day, closing at 8pm from Sunday to Thursday and 9pm on Friday and Saturday. Order the spicy chilaquiles with chorizo and eggs, a Benedict (crab cake, lobster or smoked salmon) or the Cross Creek Breakfast of two buttermilk pancakes, bacon and two eggs. Walk-ins are welcome and tables can be booked; card payments carry a 3 per cent surcharge.
Walk in3894 Cross Creek Road
- 3 min by car
Oyster bar and martini bar · $$$
The Austin oyster bar's Malibu branch opened on the new Cross Creek Ranch plaza in October 2025, three minutes' drive west. Oysters are $4.75 each, and the menu runs to a lobster roll at $48, crudo, caviar and a black Angus burger at $30, with cold martinis. From 3pm to 5pm on weekdays martinis and burgers are half price, oysters are 50 cents off and oyster shooters are $5. Lunch is daily from 11:30am to 3pm; dinner is from 4pm to 9pm Sunday to Thursday and to 10pm on Friday and Saturday. The patio looks to the mountains, not the sea.
Walk in23465 Civic Center Way, Suite 210
- 3 min by car
Wine shop, bar and restaurant · $$$
A wine shop with a bar and a restaurant inside it, in the same plaza as Clark's, with a patio. Come for a Malibu Spritz at $14 or a wood-fired pinsa romana, $19 to $29, rather than a long dinner. It is open from 11am to 9pm Monday to Thursday, 11am to 10pm on Friday, 10am to 10pm on Saturday and 10am to 9pm on Sunday. It takes no reservations, which makes it the easy answer when the other tables are full.
Walk in23465 Civic Center Way
- 5 min by car
Hawaiian-style restaurant and Barefoot Bar · $$$
The surfers' institution on the water's edge, five minutes' drive east, which reopened on 13 March 2026 after 14 months closed by the Palisades fire and a mudslide. Lunch is served daily from 11:30am to 4pm and dinner from 4pm to 8:30pm, to 9pm on Friday and Saturday. Order the Duke's Mai Tai at $18 in the Barefoot Bar, the crispy coconut shrimp at $19.50 or the baked Duke's fish at $35, and finish with Kimo's original Hula Pie at $15. Book the dining room; valet parking is on site.
Reserve ahead21150 Pacific Coast Highway
- 7 min by car
Fish market and counter, since 1972 · $$
A fish market built by commercial fishermen in 1972, with a counter, a patio of picnic tables looking at the Pacific and a free car park, seven minutes' drive west. There is no indoor seating, so it suits a dry lunch. Two fish tacos are $14.95, two pieces of fish and chips $19.95, a cup of clam chowder $6.95 and the lobster roll $32.95. It is open every day from 11am to 8pm, with the market from 10am, and weekdays are quieter than weekends.
Walk in25653 Pacific Coast Highway
- 11 min by car
Malibu dining room, since 1983 · $$$$
A Malibu fixture since 1983 on the site of the 1948 Holiday House hotel, 11 minutes' drive west, with patio, garden and balcony seating, waterfalls, fire pits and the Pacific beyond. Order the spicy fried oysters, the paella of prawns, mussels, clams and chorizo, or a whole lobster with mushroom risotto. Lunch and weekend brunch are also served. The kitchen closes early: 8:30pm Monday to Thursday and on Sunday, 9pm on Friday and Saturday. Book ahead; a 4 per cent surcharge and the valet charge are added to the bill.
Reserve ahead27400 Pacific Coast Highway
Breakfast
Carbon Beach Club serves breakfast every day from 7am to 11am, with brunch at weekends from 11am to 4pm. Two organic eggs any style with potatoes and toast are $23, avocado toast $24, lox and bagel $27, steak and eggs $45 and eggs Benedict with lobster $35, before tax and the automatic 18 per cent service charge. Breakfast is not part of the room rate unless your rate says so, and in-room dining runs 24 hours. The best outside options are Malibu Farm on the pier from 9am, four minutes' walk, and Marmalade Cafe on Cross Creek Road from 8am, two minutes by car.
What to skip
Reel Inn, the fish shack on Pacific Coast Highway that older guides still send you to, is closed: it burned down in the Palisades fire in January 2025 and has not reopened. Malibu Seafood is the fish counter to use instead.
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Questions people ask
Good questions about Malibu Beach Inn
Where can I eat near Malibu Beach Inn?
The hotel has one restaurant, Carbon Beach Club, with a terrace suspended over the sand: breakfast from 7am to 11am every day, lunch on weekdays and brunch at weekends from 11am to 4pm, dinner from 4pm to 9pm (10pm on Friday and Saturday), a weekday happy hour at the bar from 3pm to 6pm and in-room dining round the clock. Beyond it, Pacific Coast Highway has almost nothing worth a table within a ten-minute walk: Malibu Farm on the pier is four minutes away and Nobu seven. Everything else here is a drive of 2 to 11 minutes on clear roads, so you will want a car or a taxi, and most kitchens close by 9pm, so eat early. Malibu Farm at the Pier, 4 min walk. Nobu Malibu, 7 min walk. Marmalade Cafe, 2 min by car.
Our verdict
Book Malibu Beach Inn for the balcony over the Pacific, the fireplace and the 34 steps down to the sand, and accept that the highway is behind you. Pay the step up to a King Premier Ocean Front Room, ask for the third floor and treat the rest of Los Angeles as a day out by car.
Last checked: October 2026