When chef Al Crisci opened a new fine dining restaurant in 2009, there were many who said it wouldn’t work. But it wasn’t the food they had problems with, it was the location – behind bars at the High Down prison in Sutton with Category B inmates as waiters and chefs. Here Alice Whitehead talks to Crisci about how ‘The Clink’ has confounded expectations, slashing re-offending rates in half, and gathering support from high profile chefs.
How did you come up with idea for The Clink? I was catering manager at the prison and began running an NVQ cookery programme in its kitchen. However, it seemed a dead end to me. I was training these prisoners up but there were no positive outcomes for them, they couldn’t get jobs at the end of it. Then we began to organise some gourmet lunches for local employers. We’d create a makeshift dining room and offer a four-course menu, and for three years it worked wonderfully well. When the prison expanded, I floated the idea of opening a permanent restaurant – offering a real working environment – so that when the inmates got outside they were capable of working.
What was the reaction? Something like this had never been done before because no one thought it was possible, but I did. However, I knew we couldn’t expect the taxpayer to fork out money for a fine dining restaurant in a prison, so I set about raising the money myself. I spoke to people in criminal justice, charities and those interested in prisoner rehabilitation. With support and advice from Kevin McGrath of the McGrath charitable trust and Kate Quigley-Ruby, senior prison officer seconded to charities, I invited potential funders over and showed them around an empty room and said ‘imagine this as a restaurant’. In six months, I’d raised £330,000.
How does it work? It’s high quality food, so it’s very hard work. We want to maintain the success even when the novelty has worn off and that means getting regular customers and providing quality food. It’s not about putting something in a microwave and pressing a button; this is the pressure of a real kitchen - it’s fine dining. Prisoners make their own pasta - for the crab ravioli, the crabs are alive in the morning and a pasta parcel by lunchtime! They also make their own sauces, stocks, ice cream, biscuits and cakes. We have a vegetable garden where other prisoners grow for the kitchen. It’s on a par with, if not better than, most restaurants on the outside.
What are some of the challenges? There’s so many. The prisoners don’t have keys so movement is restricted, they can’t talk to customers on the phone, and most have no work experience. We are restricted on the hours they are allowed to work, so there’s no evenings or weekends, and all customers have to book in advance. This means we have to make sure we have a solid customer base – if someone cancels we can’t get ‘walk ins’ to replace them. We also have to vet all the customers, we need to know where they are coming from, and invite only those from public services, charities, teachers, and police etc, people who are going to be able to support these prisoners when they get outside.
What would you say to people who believe inmates don’t deserve these opportunities? People assume that all prisoners are bad people. But often it’s simply circumstances; many have no families, no qualifications, and they came from children’s homes. It costs £47,000 a year to keep a person in prison for a year, but what’s the alternative? If it were your son or daughter, would you want them to be given a chance not to reoffend? It’s by no means a ‘free lunch’, they get a trial and if they’re not up to it, then they’re out.
Any success stories? We’ve trained 100 offenders so far. 34 have been released and of those three have reoffended on the outside, so that’s less than 10 per cent reoffending rate – but this is miles better than the 47 per cent rate nationally outside of our program. There’s a skills shortage in the hospitality industry, and our graduates can help fill that gap. Many of my boys have gone to work in top restaurants and hotels around the UK including Antonio Carluccio, and he has become The Clink’s chef ambassador. Giorgio Locatelli comes in regularly to try out recipes with the inmates too, as does two-Michelin starred chef Stephen Terry. This is exactly what I wanted to achieve: people on the outside learning that it’s a worthwhile scheme and that it is changing lives.
You’ve just opened another restaurant at HMP Cardiff? Yes, this one is different because it’s outside the prison walls and is therefore the first to be open to the public, but it’s still staffed by prisoners. The prisoners have all had a thorough risk assessment (which is probably more than you can say of most restaurants!) and we’re already fully booked.
You could have opened a restaurant anywhere, why has The Clink been so important to you? Like any chef, I love seeing a full restaurant and cooking food to a high standard but with The Clink you get that little bit extra. The thing I love most is seeing a prisoner being released into a job. This scheme doesn’t just teach them how to cook, it teaches them life skills: working as a team, coping with stress, and learning how to interact with the public. It’s the whole package; we don’t just send them out of the door and say ‘see you in a month when you’ll be back in’, they get mentoring and support – and a Clink graduate is part of the family. The results have been phenomenal. Customers come up and say ‘that was fantastic food, who made that?’ and it really boosts the prisoners’ confidence – and that’s incredibly important. People think prisoners have too much self-confidence but actually it’s the exact opposite. They can’t cope with the world like you or I do. Plans are in the pipeline for two more ‘Clinks’ to open in the next 18 months – one in London and one at a women’s prison – and I hope similar schemes will be rolled out across the country eventually.
All tables must be booked in advance. Read more about The Clink Restaurant at High Down Prison.
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The Clink
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