With more than 30 restaurants in his portfolio, MML Hospitality’s Larry McGuire is used to whirlwinds. But this month has been especially wild for the Austin-based hospitality mogul.
On November 6, McGuire hosted a rollicking 50th anniversary party for Jeffrey’s, the Austin fine dining institution he acquired in 2011. The next evening, he was in Malibu, where he and MML’s Tom Moorman and Liz Lambert recently opened their latest location of Clark’s Oyster Bar at the Cross Creek Ranch development. A few days later, he headed to New York, where MML has purchased the Nine Orchard hotel and its restaurant/bar spaces. MML, which has hired acclaimed chef April Bloomfield to work on both existing and future projects, is in the middle of sorting out the new food-and-beverage program at Nine Orchard.
In the meantime, Clark’s Oyster Bar in Malibu is a prime example of how McGuire and his partners think about expansion and hospitality. They find areas they like and aim to create timeless experiences inspired by food memories, their travels and their desire to build new escapes. They run restaurants that double as neighborhood spots and destination dining. They operate viable businesses. In fact, they’ve never closed a restaurant.
It might seem unlikely that an Austin-based seafood bar would become an instant success in Malibu, an oceanfront area that already boasts the old-school Malibu Seafood and the new-generation Broad Street Oyster Company. But guests at Clark’s Oyster Bar this past weekend were raving about how this restaurant is perfect for Malibu, which has been itching for a proper sit-down seafood destination like this where you can pair raw bar platters with cocktails and limited-production wines from Champagne, Burgundy, Loire and California.
The Malibu space, with a striking salt-water aquarium that’s a signature feature at every Clark’s Oyster Bar location, is inspired by American coastal cuisine from New England to California. So there’s terrific clam chowder and a generously packed lobster roll, but there’s also a crudo plate that’s a nod to Swan Oyster Depot in San Francisco. There’s a selection of East Coast and West Coast oysters and a habit-forming Dungeness crab cocktail.
Clark’s Oyster Bar is also good at putting its own stamp on dishes. The thinness of the restaurant’s hand-cut shoestring fries is often discussed by customers, and McGuire admits that the fries can be divisive. But as we discovered, putting some of those crunchy fries on a lobster roll or in a bowl of New England chowder is fun. Meanwhile, a standout new dish of linguine with clams has a sauce that’s thickened with cream. We may or may not have added some texture in the form of shoestring fries to that pasta.
Clark’s Oyster Bar, which debuted at a former Austin gas station in 2012, expanded to Aspen in 2018 and to Houston in 2023, is going big in California. Clark’s opened a Montecito location last December and a Menlo Park outpost in April before making its way to Malibu for its late October debut. McGuire and MML are constantly in motion, knowing that the best and most fulfilling rides are the ones you create yourself.