
Inside the Curtis Stone farmhouse at the center of the chef's growing lifestyle empire
The Melbourne-born celebrity chef and TV personality behind Gwen in Hollywood and the Pie Room by Curtis Stone (in the Beverly Hills space that was his now-shuttered fine dining restaurant Maude) might be filming a cooking demo or tending to his vineyard on his 55-acre farm in Agoura Hills. It's the first farm that Stone has ever owned, and a purchase that's offered new paths for his companies: his own wine label, a production studio he hopes to open to other chefs, an events space and, one day, a vegetable garden.
'I was constantly going, 'We need something bigger,'' he says. 'So when I got this, I'm like, 'That's it. About 60 acres. It can't get bigger.''
Pass through a wrought-iron gate, then dip through a small creek and the white, 1958 ranch-style farmhouse comes fully into view. Beyond it are acres of grapevines on a soft slope, lightly worn paths just visible up the curving hillsides.
The lawns are dotted with large oak and sycamore trees, some of them 400 years old. As the grand limbs fall, wood is chopped and repurposed for live-fire cooking at Gwen and for the grill at the farm, which sits at the east end of the yard and features a smoker, a brick oven and an adjustable, Santa Maria-style grill.
Stone and his family live somewhat nearby, in Brentwood, and all of them help to work the property. One of Stone's sons also uses the grounds as a performance space: Each year they host 'Kidchella,' where 150 guests file in to watch children's bands play while Stone cooks up barbecue.
On a late-April day, Gareth Evans, one of Stone's longtime staff and a former executive chef of Maude, is prepping ingredients and pulling props for Stone's impending shoot for the Home Shopping Network. These happen monthly, a grueling filming marathon that begins at midnight and requires two hours of nonstop cooking demos and interviews, all broadcast live to promote Stone's line of kitchenware sold through HSN.
They shoot in two-hour blocks, rotating between the farmhouse's various cooking stations, whose rolling islands are interchangeable. When the cameras cut away for a 30-second break, Stone and his team will reset or jump to another station, leaping into the next demo. A smaller kitchen — a bit more country-home in design — serves as another shooting locale as well as a prep kitchen. Sometimes these shoots extend to the outdoor patio, draped in hanging strings of wisteria, where its own grill awaits.
Inside a living-room-like staging area with a fireplace and a piano, Stone records podcasts and conducts interviews.
The farmhouse now serves as home base for his growing empire. Stone flies to Australia roughly every eight weeks, but otherwise he's typically found in L.A. It was meeting his wife, Lindsay Price, that put down his roots here.
'I fell in love with this city for all the usual reasons: great weather, good surf and a lot of delicious food,' he says. 'But I decided to stick around when I met Lindsay.'
According to property records, Stone purchased the farm for $4.7 million in 2021. He says it was a pandemic-spurred necessity. Prior to COVID-19, he and his team shot cooking demos in the HSN studios; when lockdown began and in-person production slowed to a halt, he began shooting these spots in his own test kitchen, located above Gwen, and quickly realized he needed more space.
Stone employs a small army, with an increasing number of operations running through the farm. He still maintains a test kitchen and offices above Gwen but is weighing relocating them to his sprawling new Mid-Wilshire bakery, a 6,000-square-foot facility that includes a viennoiserie for laminating croissant dough with butter, a chocolate room, a double-decker bread oven, a proofing station and multiple rotating ovens.
Stone's business realm is vast, with some branches run in partnership with his brother, Luke, and longtime friend Chris Sheldon. For every cooking product Stone develops, he and his team write five to 20 recipes. For those strenuous midnight HSN shoots, he'll staff 50 people on-site. His catering company operates here and in Australia, and feeds as many as 30,000 guests in a day. He helms the food operations at Melbourne's Royal Botanic Gardens, maintains two restaurants in Los Angeles, an events space in Melbourne and a floating restaurant on a cruise ship. Between his restaurants, production company, catering, and product and recipe teams, he employs around 250 people, plus freelancers. He needed the space.
When Stone obtained the farmhouse property, he inherited an outdoor shipping-container wine bar built just off the farmhouse. He expanded that single metal rectangle and flipped it into what he now calls Shipping Container Village, which includes a walk-in fridge, a commercial kitchen, prop storage, an upgraded wine bar, laundry and offices.
And though winemaking was not a business he ever expected to enter, Stone also found himself with a vineyard when he bought the land.
'The day that we got it, the owner was like, 'All right, so here's the keys, and here's the keys for the tractor.' And I'm like, 'Tractor?'' Stone says. 'She was like, 'Now I don't know if you want to harvest this year or not, but if you want to harvest you probably have to net the vines this week, and you'll harvest in two or three weeks. Here's the number of a guy.''
He's had to learn a lot about wine production, and quickly. (He's also learned how to drive that tractor.)
The result is Four Stones, a wine label named for himself, his wife and their two sons, with grapes grown entirely on the property.
Previous owners planted the vines in 1997, and the roughly 12 acres of vineyard have produced Four Stones' Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, a Bordeaux blend, Cabernet Sauvignon, Moscato and a 50-50 blend of Syrah and Cabernet, with the grapes processed nearby in Westlake where they're pressed, transferred to stainless steel vats and aged in oak barrels. It puts out 230 cases of wine, give or take, which is not large by any commercial standard, but large enough to sell at his restaurants.
Triunfo Canyon's vacillating clime offers warm, direct sun on these south-facing-slope vines by day and cool breezes trapped from the coast by night. The Santa Monica Mountains are dotted with wineries, including Cielo Farms, Colcanyon Estate Wines and Rosenthal.
This spring, Stone's vines are blossoming back to life from a dormant winter, sprouting fruit that will ripen in the summer sun and be ready for an early fall harvest. His sons help train the grapevines up onto wires, and when the time comes, pluck the grapes into buckets, usually eating the fruit as they go.
'If you want your name on the bottle,' Stone says, 'you gotta work.'
But the new venture hasn't been without disaster.
Last year the vines bore nothing — the mountains' deer and white flies beat the family to the fruit.
'The vineyard is something that you spend money on all year, because you water it, there's maintenance, and then you have to prune, and then you have to harvest,' Stone says. 'If you lose your crop, all gone, that's $150,000.'
Someday the chef would like to see sheep grazing between the vines, as they often do in Australia, to help control weed growth. He'd also like to add a menagerie of animals to the farm and plant a large vegetable garden. Local grower Logan Williams of Silver Lake's Logan's Gardens consulted on what might suit the land, and Stone is currently plotting where to begin.
There is near-constant maintenance on his 55 acres. On this April day, a team is not only clearing the brush from the vines but also, near his shed, cleaning what was once a pond, its future use to be determined. In the weeks prior, another tree fell, which will need to be processed for wood if possible.
From a vista near the property line, Stone surveys the vines and the rolling Santa Monica Mountains (a view that also includes a peek at 'The Bachelor' mansion).
'You sort of focus on one thing and you're like, 'Let's get that under control,' and then you turn around and you're like, 'Man, this other thing's totally out of control,'' he says. 'You know, it's a full-time job, but I'm lucky. Look how beautiful this is.'
It's a perfect setting for an outdoor wedding. In fact, he's hosted a few on the property. But rather than using the farm as a dedicated events space, Stone prefers to use it for one-off events such as this month's Great Australian Bite, held in collaboration with the Los Angeles Times.
The May 31 event will feature Stone's cooking in an ode to his homeland, and feature guest chef and Staġuni restaurateur Clare Falzon. Across Stone's farm, they'll be referencing the nation's cuisine through imported ingredients like Skull Island prawns and native mountain pepper, Margra lamb shanks with dates and pistachios, and grilled Wagyu strip loin from Blackmore, one of Australia's forerunners in the breed.
Perhaps someday, Stone says, he'll add an Airstream trailer or other accommodations to the grounds. But for now his focus is mostly on what occurs inside that 1,800-square-foot white farmhouse.
He hopes to create a one-stop shop for cooks and culinary creators, photographers and food stylists who are not only looking for a kitchen set to shoot videos and cooking demos as he does, but also a team of producers to help produce and polish the content for social media or other uses.
'The truth is, we're cooks — we're not social-media geniuses,' he says. 'Some people do it way better than others, and some people outsource it to agencies, but it's become an important part of business in general, especially for restaurants.'
After years in the kitchens of the Savoy and under the tutelage of legendary chef Marco Pierre White, Stone launched his TV career with 'Take Home Chef' and went on to appear on 'Master Chef,' 'Iron Chef,' 'Top Chef' and 'Crime Scene Kitchen.' One of his latest programs, PBS' 'Field Trip With Curtis Stone,' is currently nominated for a James Beard Foundation Award.
He hopes to help other chefs hone on-camera skills as he's done over the years. And afterward, maybe they'll take a bottle of wine or a few logs of fallen oak to remember their time on the farm.
The Great Australian Bite with Curtis Stone and Clare Falzon takes place on Four Stones Farm in Agoura Hills on May 31. Entry includes a multicourse meal highlighting the bounty of Australian cuisine, as well as cocktails, wine, beer and nonalcoholic beverages. Tickets cost $289 and are on sale now.

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San Francisco Chronicle
2 hours ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
One of S.F.'s most anticipated restaurants is about to open
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Born in England but raised in Hong Kong, Parry went on to work at Corey Lee's three-Michelin-star Benu in San Francisco, as well as Michelin-starred restaurants in Hong Kong. The Happy Crane is equipped with a hulking, super-hot duck oven to prepare whole Peking-style birds. A stone mill will be used to grind fresh rice for cheung fun, or rice noodle rolls. Parry added a wok station to the kitchen of the prominent corner space in Hayes Valley, last occupied by Lee's French bistro Monsieur Benjamin. The menu is a la carte, though diners can opt for a $120 chef's choice dinner. Dim sum favorites like firecracker shrimp and fish-stuffed eggplant take on new forms and flavors here, the latter topped with sweet uni and Worcestershire sauce (a nod to Parry's birthplace). Braised beef shins ($19) are paired with confit artichokes, sliced to mimic the appearance of beef tendons, and an aromatic sauce made from a master stock. The rice roll ($33), which Parry said has a 'gelatinous' mouthfeel thanks to the fresh-milled rice, comes with crab and a sauce made from crab shells, butter, and shaoxing wine. The craft of siu mei, or roasted meats, is a passion of Parry's. At popups, he made char siu with pork jowl, a cut of meat more common in Hong Kong than the Bay Area, which will continue at the restaurant. The whole ducks, available by pre-order ($110), come with housemade pancakes and tian mian jiang, a thick, fermented sauce that Parry elevates with pluot juice. Parry also plans to apply the techniques of Cantonese duck to roasted Wolfe Ranch quail with lacquered skin ($41). And crispy pork belly ($45), siu yuk, gets its turn in the ripping-hot duck oven. 'Basically, it's several steps of burning the skin to get that crispy, charred flavor,' Parry said. The pork belly is finished on a Japanese charcoal grill and served with a miso hot mustard, choy sum and tomato relish. 'Particularly here in the West where labor is really tough, these traditional elements, because they're very time-consuming and very specific in terms of the craft, people are trying to find shortcuts,' said Parry. 'I understand it economically, but as a craft, I think it's really important to preserve.' Desserts pull on childhood nostalgia: seasonal frozen yogurt, which Parry grew up eating in Hong Kong, and mochi balls that channel the chocolate-hazelnut flavor of Ferrero Rocher, a typical Chinese New Year gift. Parry and Happy Crane bar manager Carolyn Kao (previously of top spots True Laurel and Good Good Culture Club in San Francisco and Oakland bar Viridian) brought in Kevin Diedrich of famed San Francisco bar Pacific Cocktail Haven to develop drinks. They play with Chinese ingredients like lychee, red bean and five-spice throughout the menu. The Rosy Dawn, one of the first cocktails recorded in Hong Kong by writer Charles H. 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The Gough Street building with dramatic floor-to-ceiling windows has been transformed into a warm, open space filled with personal touches. Two stone mythical creature statues, given to Parry by his uncle as symbols of protection and prosperity, flank the front doors. Banquettes are made from English tweed. Parry's sister, Yolande, painted artwork in the moody bathroom and illustrations for the cocktail menu. The heart of the dining room is a 14-seat wraparound bar covered in wavy, textured layers of plaster, meant to evoke a style of traditional Chinese landscape painting. Dishes will be served on bowls and plates made by a Taiwanese artist and a local ceramicist. A large floral paper lantern hangs over a 12-seat private dining room, which will be used for general reservations when it's not booked. The Happy Crane adds to a wave of next -generation Chinese restaurants. Chef-owner Brandon Jew is often credited with leading the charge when he opened Mister Jiu's in San Francisco in 2016. Two alumni of the Chinatown Michelin-starred restaurant are now running nationally acclaimed newcomer Four Kings. The genre, Parry said, is 'starting to wake up and gather momentum with these modern versions of Chinese cuisine through different people's lenses.' The Happy Crane. Opening Aug. 8. 5-9 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday. 451 Gough St., San Francisco.


Vogue
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