Serving time: The menu at The Clink, the new restaurant at High Down Prison in Surrey
Prison opens a high class restaurant.
You can order anything, just don't ask for porridge.
The food could grace an upmarket restaurant in London's West End, with decor to match... but the panic alarms and the plastic cutlery show all is not as it seems.
This is The Clink, Britain's first experiment in fine dining to be situated inside a high-security prison.
Getting a seat is not simply a matter of booking well in advance, but requires Home Office approval and security clearance.
Exclusive: Diners at the restaurant need full security clearance to get a seat
Diners are ushered into the restaurant at HMP High Down in Surrey past 30ft-high walls topped with razor wire.
All the chefs, porters and waiters are prisoners and both the head chef and the maitre d' are convicted drug smugglers.
Wine in this cooler is only offered on special occasions, in carefully monitored volumes, while baking is problematic because yeast could be used for brewing alcohol if it somehow found its way into the cells.
Quality control: Catering manager Alberto Crisci, right, inspects the food
No bars to success: HMP High Down governor Peter Dawson describes The Clink as 'an inspirational project'
Prison opens a high class restaurant.
You can order anything, just don't ask for porridge.
The food could grace an upmarket restaurant in London's West End, with decor to match... but the panic alarms and the plastic cutlery show all is not as it seems.
This is The Clink, Britain's first experiment in fine dining to be situated inside a high-security prison.
Getting a seat is not simply a matter of booking well in advance, but requires Home Office approval and security clearance.
Exclusive: Diners at the restaurant need full security clearance to get a seat
Diners are ushered into the restaurant at HMP High Down in Surrey past 30ft-high walls topped with razor wire.
All the chefs, porters and waiters are prisoners and both the head chef and the maitre d' are convicted drug smugglers.
Wine in this cooler is only offered on special occasions, in carefully monitored volumes, while baking is problematic because yeast could be used for brewing alcohol if it somehow found its way into the cells.
Quality control: Catering manager Alberto Crisci, right, inspects the food
No bars to success: HMP High Down governor Peter Dawson describes The Clink as 'an inspirational project'
The idea of a high-quality prison restaurant was cooked up by High Down catering manager Alberto Crisci - formerly a chef at Mirabelle in London's Mayfair, which was once owned by Marco Pierre White.
The Prison Service put up £300,000 and Mr Crisci invested his own money too in getting the project off the ground. Prison governor Peter Dawson describes it as 'an inspirational project'.
The aim is to rehabilitate the prisoners by giving them skills, a sense of purpose - and discipline worthy of the chefs who compete on TV's Hell's Kitchen.
Mr Crisci told the Daily Mirror: 'Prisoners only have to step out of line once and they are out. This is a real restaurant. I expect them to do exactly what I ask them to do.'
Time for rehabilitation: Four of the staff at The Clink, where discipline is the watchword
Cutting edge: But diners have to make do with plastic cutlery
Prices are rock bottom compared to other restaurants of this calibre. For £4.50, you can have griddled minute steak with sauce bearnaise, chips and salad; breast of chicken and pepperonata with radicchio risotto; or grilled plaice fillets with spinach, broccoli and potato salad.
Many of the ingredients at The Clink are fresh from the prison gardens and all meals are cooked to order.
Presumably, however, no one asks for porridge.
CREDITS BY DAILY.CO.UK
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