only one restaurant she had been recommended while in town. It was Catalina Rose Bay.

The booking, made from Washington, was quite the spectacle. A huge team of US Security

Service agents converged on Rose Bay, divers were positioned under the building, the water

police and the Navy were nearby. NSW and Federal Police as well as the dog and bomb

squad rounded out the detail to at least 150.

Inside, enjoying her scallops, Barramundi and Australian red wine, Albright leant over and

whispered to restaurateur Michael McMahon if he would mind if she took off her shoes.

After all, she confessed as she kicked them off under the table, her two dining companions

unaware. She’d been shopping for Akubras, Drizabones and Aussie opals earlier that day.

Leaving the restaurant with a smile, Albright left a tip on her AMEX.

It’s these kind of intimate moments that McMahon and is wife Judy have been privy to for

the past 25 years with their much loved, family-run institution, Catalina, which celebrates its

25th Birthday tomorrow night.

Today the couple are soaking up the afternoon sun which is beaming through the wall-to-

wall glass panels overlooking a sweeping Sydney Harbour with their son James, 35, and

daughter Kate, 33. Paddle boarders glide effortlessly between boats and seaplanes. This

spectacular view has been their office every day for the past 25 years.

When they opened in 1994, Michael said he wanted to create “a high quality hangout for

easties”.

It was a promise he made good on.

From the get go, Catalina was a hot spot. Gossip columns were devoted to the

powerbrokers, politicians, socialites, and movies stars who flocked including Beyoncé and

Jay Z, Katy Perry, Charlize Theron, Leonardo Di Caprio, Dan Aykroyd, Anthony Hopkins,

Lionel Richie, Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway.

But it’s not the A-listers he has served that Michael is most proud.

It is surviving in a notoriously fickle industry which sees more scalps than stayers.

“There’s a lot of attrition in this industry, hospitality is very hard,” he says honestly. “The

amount of people who hold one restaurant for this amount of time by one family — it’s really

not very often. And to be at the top of its game.

“To keep striving for better things. You can’t just rest. You keep trying to be better and to

keep your standards up … I’m a finicky pain-in-the-arse most of the time. I like things being

done a certain way…,” he chuckles before daughter Kate, interjects, mimicking her dad’s

voice: “People going in the out door!”.

Michael nods his head in agreeance. “That drives me insane. It ruins the flow!”

The family are sharing memories, anecdotes, dreams and future plans as they reflect on the

past quarter of a century. There’s a lovely energy, warmly filled with shared goals and inter-

generational memories. It’s clear no one is boss. This is a team, where work and home life

blend effortlessly.

Kate’s son Ethan, 10, is at the next table decorating a chocolate cupcake he baked from

scratch after school, much the same way Michael and Judy’s three children grew up in the

Catalina kitchen. It’s the place James learned to shell prawns and elder son, Paul, trained to

be a chef. Paul is now a photographer, running the restaurant’s social media.

“For me it is about working with family that I just love working with. That’s the

achievement,” says Kiwi-born Judy.

“We are better now than we ever were. Higher quality service. Better food. We haven’t

reinvented, we’ve just gotten better at what we do,” affirms son James. “There’s not a lot of

big expensive restaurants that are still thriving.”

Michael was running the family pub in Cootamundra at 18 and joined Len Evans Wines in

Bulletin Point where he met Judy, then a waitress. They married two years later, working

together in Berowra Waters Inn. The formidable team then opened Barrenjoey House in

Palm Beach in the 80s where Judy would breast feed a baby Kate, who would sleep in a

laundry basket under the cash register, with a toddler running around.

In 1994, the couple opened Catalina at the site which was once the famous Caprice

nightclub. The place was considered a dud, but Michael knew it had potential with its

unparalleled panoramic views. “There’s no position like this anywhere in the world. It’s

unique.”

They tore it down, kept the shell of the building, and spent “a truckload of money” building

the light, uncluttered, crisp and airy venue which instantly became a people watching

magnet.

Their first big function was a 40th birthday for former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. He later became an investor for a short time, passing by “only the other day to have a sticky beak” at the recent new kitchen fit-out.

It became the home of the long lunch. In one sitting you could see Paul Keating dining with

John Laws, seated across from John Singleton with Dawn Fraser and Johnny Raper while

David Leckie and James Packer would be nearby. Later that night you might find Bono eating

chargrilled swordfish with Helena Christensen while Billy Crystal sat in the corner.

They were the days when the late Rene Rivkin would wave from his yacht Dajoshadita and

Kerry Packer would swing by in his speed boat and yell out the front: “Michael. Fish and

chips? How long?”.

“It was a different era,” says Michael of the time it wouldn’t be strange to see 15 Rolls

Royce’s parked out the front. “There was a lot of ladies who lunched, all in Chanel.”

That car park is probably the place where Renouf wished she had left her car on a fateful

day in 1995 when she made headlines after crashing her black convertible BMW on New

South Head Road after a five and a half hour lunch quaffing champagne with Glen Marie

Frost and Lady Sonia McMahon.

Heston Blumenthal gave the thumbs up for the plate of lobster pasta and Marco Pierre

White camped there when in town. They served Al Pacino broccoli, Stevie Nicks a

nutritionist pre-approved meal and Joan Collins, under a wide brimmed hat, a simple plate

of avocado.

The 180 degree views have also seen Hugh Jackman deliver an hilarious best man’s speech,

Wesley Snipes order bottles and bottles of $800 a pop Cristal champagne and, one Friday

night, Quentin Tarantino hold court and regale his Hateful Eight stars Kurt Russell, Samuel L

Jackson, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tim Roth and Channing Tatum with tales like a Hollywood

king. “We had to stop dad from pulling up a chair!” laughs James.

Michael is clear on his favourite star guest though, Billy Joel, who would go on to dine with,

sneaking him out of the kitchen to avoid the paparazzi camped in the carpark outside.

One person who insisted on not using the kitchen back entrance was British actress Sienna

Miller. That lunch, James recalls, Michael — who had been sailing and was wearing a vest

and a pair of shorts and had windswept wet hair — offered for her to ‘go through the kitchen

and hop in the black Audi and I’ll drive you out to the main road’. Not recognising him, she

opted for the front door filled with waiting paps.

So excited were other female guests in the restaurant when Ab Fab girls Joanna Lumley and

Jennifer Saunders lunched, they started sending bottles of Bollinger to their table. Miranda

Kerr slipped in last New Year’s Eve with husband, tech billionaire Evan Spiegel, completely

unnoticed.

But it’s not all glitz and glamour.

There have been tough times too. While the couple say they have never thought about

packing it in, the hardest times were after Woolloomooloo Wharf thrived in the 90s.

“For years we were in the sun, then this huge conglomerate of restaurants opened and

sucked the life out of the business,” says James.

“All the hype, that was really hard,” says Judy. “And we were much further out of the city,

so we were the venue for a lot off business lunches up until then … But we came back from

that.”

The family all credit mum Judy with being at the forefront of keeping Catalina alive.

“She’s the secret,” says Kate. “It’s the marketing opportunities mum spearheaded to remind

people we were here.” James cites here recruitment of a rewards program long before

many top restaurants were discounting anything.

They have stuck with the winning formula of slick service, spectacular views, sophisticated

staff and fresh simple, satisfying seafood intentionally, the formula is not one James keen on

stuffing around with. “We want to be all things to all people,” he says, admitting the

Mooloolaba king prawn and saffron tortellini with the shellfish bisque is his favourite dish.

But for Judy it’s the relationship they have built with their customers that strikes to the

heart of the venue. The sense of family.

“We are service oriented. That’s really the part of the restaurant that is front and foremost.

The food is terrific, the food is beautiful, but it’s our clients. They return. They come back

with their kids and their kids, kids. We do their engagement, their wedding, their

christenings, their birthdays and their anniversary’s. It’s a beautiful circle of life.”

On many occasions Judy and Michael would invite a table who was dining in the restaurant

back to their home, for many years across the road, just so they close up the restaurant.

“We really have become part of the fabric of the eastern suburbs. We have become part of

people’s lives. We’ve made wonderful friends.

“It was organic,” says Michael. “Basically we’re reasonable gregarious people and we like

our customers. My best friends’ started as customers! It’s very much a lifestyle we live.”

Testament is the staff who have been there for decades. Executive chef Mark Axisa started as

an apprentice at 19, 16 years ago.

With plans for the next stage of the redevelopment currently awaiting the DA approval from

Woollahra Council (they withdrew their initial application) the family are excited about the

future.

“We were going out, now we are going up as there were issues with exceeding our floor

space,” explains James.

“For us the idea of expansion is exciting. It lets James and I put our own stamp on it, rather

than open another venue it makes more sense to develop this one,” says Kate of plans for

an upstairs lounge and bar.

Michael and Judy are ready to take a step back, revealing to The Wentworth Courier their

succession plans.

“I think we are,” she says hesitating slightly, emphasising the “still want to be here, we love

this place! We’ll still be around.”

They will celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary there next year and say they are proud to

see their children become the next generation of Catalina. It’s something they welcome

despite never having plans to create such a dynasty. In fact, both pushed Kate and James to

go to university.

Both kids wouldn’t dream of doing anything else.

“I’m excited about sharing everything I shared with my parents with my children and getting

them to grow up in the same environment,” says Kate who initially rebelled from the family

fold, opting to work with Solotel and Merivale, before returning.

“I think my parents have always showed us you have to work bloody hard if you want to get

anywhere. They built this up from nothing and that’s the best example you can give.”

“

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