A culinary and visual experience.
8 at Trinity – a culinary and visual experience.
By Daniel Resnik
I’ve always envisaged Lake Macquarie to be a sleepy region dotted with quaint little towns where you end up living your latter senior years in retirement. It certainly wasn’t somewhere I’d expect an exciting landmark development to be launched. Twenty-five years in the making, the Trinity Point precinct in Morisset has finally received development approval and will transform the area into a luxury waterfront destination. With 180 luxury waterfront apartments, 200 room 5 star Hotel, two new restaurants, a functions and business centre, a world class cutting edge longevity/wellness retreat and day spa, along with the already established Trinity Point Marina which will expand to 188 berths and other fabulous amenities, this $665 plus million-dollar project is expected to be a major boost for the Lake Macquarie region.
Multi award winning restaurant in Morisset
The announcement for this epic project was revealed recently at a fabulous black-tie event held at the award-winning restaurant ‘8 at Trinity’ located at Trinity Point in Morisset, to celebrate a vision realised. This multiple award-winning restaurant, that’s been in operation since November 2019, has redefined luxury affordable fine dining combined with impeccable service on a grand scale and with an extensive menu that is diverse, offering a selection of food catering for every culinary delight and dietary requirement. Loved by locals and frequented by regular clients from Sydney, many who drive up just for to experience ‘8 at Trinity’s’ fine cuisine, mouth-watering cocktails, atmosphere and service. Alternatively, some patrons also arrive by seaplane or other ocean-going transport.
This evening’s celebrations were hosted by juggernaut Natalie Johnson, who also happened to be the birthday girl that night and who also operates this magnificent establishment like a finely tuned machine, alongside with her property developer husband Keith Johnson, have together over many years changed the face of Lake Macquarie forever.
On the night of this celebration, one had to pinch oneself in the realisation that ‘8 at Trinity’ restaurant, with its grand elegance, impeccable style, opulence and thoughtful attention to every detail is only the pop-up restaurant for Trinity Point! Seating up to 350 people and serving around one thousand people a day, this multi-million dollar pop up really show cases what is to come once this colossal development is complete.
Set amongst a lush tropical garden with Lake Macquarie as its splendid backdrop, created the perfect atmosphere to sit back and enjoy world class cocktails, champagne and hors oeuvres served by professional and welcoming staff, all the while being serenaded by a talented violinist. This was just a taste of what was to come. Once seated, we were served a delectable and generous three course gastronomical delight whilst being thoroughly spoilt with incredible entertainment that consisted of acrobats, dancing waiters, fire twirlers and much more. No expense was spared to ensure guests had a wonderful time in every sense. The night was a true reflection of the commitment, dedication, hard work and persistence of Natalie’s vision for ‘8 at Trinity’, an establishment definitely worthy of the three-hour round-trip drive from Sydney to experience this impressive restaurant. There are of course multiple options to stay overnight or longer if you wish to explore this charming area and discover what the Greater Newcastle region has to offer.
Natalie Johnson
Natalie was always going to be a success at whatever she did as she throws herself into her work one hundred percent. She started working for her father in property development at the age of 14. Natalie’s father could see she was struggling with bullying at school and decided she was better off doing courses at night to further her education, which included interior design, a professional cookery course in Italy, beauty therapy, fashion design and working for her father during the day. This early experience in the business world and studying 7 days a week from a young age, gave her the confidence and financial savings for her first venture of her many successful cafes. She opened her first café at the age of nineteen. She would open 3 café restaurants over a period of 5 years after working 7 days, 100-hour weeks. In just a short time, Natalie’s determination, hard work, passion and exceptional vision turned into a veritable gold mine.
The Manly Wharf connection
After feeding and caffeinating the masses over the years, Natalie decided to go back into property and sold her business. She was then recruited as a consultant to lease the whole of Manly wharf owned by TMG Developments at the time, changing to what was souvenir shops, Time Zone and other failing retail businesses into a thriving multimillion-dollar successful food focused destination with some of the best restaurant and food operators in Sydney including the David Jones Foodchain – then Aldi, Queen Chow, Hugos, Bavarian Beer café, Chat Thai, Max Brenner, Manly wharf Hotel and many more. She played a part in changing the face of Manly wharf that had always been a prehistoric white elephant.
This concept became successful, and Natalie was then offered the position of Manly Wharf Centre Manager and then Property Manager of other properties owned by TMG developments which included Pier One Hotel, Harbour Rocks Hotel, and many other commercial properties.
In 2010 Natalie wanted to own her own business again and opened Candylicious on Manly Wharf which became so successful that she opened four candy stores within a two year period that sold over four tonnes of confectionary a week.
It was after opening the four candy stores that Natalie met her husband Keith Johnson, Managing Director and founder of The Johnson Property Group, a large residential land developer. At the time Keith had owned the land at Trinity Point for 15 years and had received concept plan approval. Keith and Natalie started working on a DA which was eventually approved in 2016 and started selling the 196 blocks of land at the location. However, the land sales were slow due to the low valuations as valuers would not take into account the approved DA. Many people did not believe anyone would go to Trinity Point and stay in the hotel or visit the area. Against all the expert’s advice and opinions, mostly negative, it was decided that they would build half of the 188 berth marina, which was built by Bellingham’s, one of the best Marina builders in the world and also open a temporary restaurant on site to show that people would visit and that the project would be commercially successful and showcase the quality and standard that was envisaged.
Initially the best Restaurant operators in Sydney were approached to open the restaurant on site but no operator could be convinced it would be successful and many said it would never work. Natalie decided to do it herself; design and run it as she did with all her previous businesses. Since the restaurant’s opening in 2019, the land sold at record pricing and the marina is completely full, with a waitlist for the next stage of the development. The restaurant employs over 100 staff and serves up to 1000 customers a day and all in one of the toughest trading conditions hospitality had ever seen through covid. This success showed that in fact, what was approved, would not cope with the influx of people. Eighty percent of customers on the weekend would travel from Sydney just to eat at the restaurant. Build it and they will come!
Koichi Takada Architects commissioned for Trinity Point
It was then decided that award winning internationally acclaimed Australian firm ‘Koichi Takada Architects’ would be commissioned to design a world class resort, which then became a state significant development and one that will put Trinity Point on a world stage with some of the best resorts in the world. The Johnson’s vision and unstoppable drive and passion was not to be deterred. This transformational project will inject millions into the local economy and will create hundreds of new jobs.
I look forward to seeing the next stage of this exciting and historic development.
