Just like the restaurant, the menu throws me at first. Should I have the lobster and crab quenelles with a truffle bisque or the slow-roasted breast of lamb? Then again, the braised beef olive with parsley stuffing and mini oxtail pudding and the pan-fried salt cod with peppers and chard both sound equally mouth-watering. "I can recommend the Cotechino sausage with lentils and ham hock terrine," says my dining companion, Peter Dawson, the governor of High Down prison in Sutton, Surrey. "It's one of chef's mother's recipes."
We are sitting in The Clink restaurant, which is exactly like any other high-end restaurant, apart from its location right in the heart of High Down. Nothing like it exists in any other prison in the country, due to the perceived risks involved. The Clink operates as a mess for prison staff and a training workshop for prisoners, but around 75% of its clientele are members of the public. Many are involved in the justice system – lawyers, judges, MPs – but others come from the local community: the WI, the Mothers' Union, church groups and charities. Perhaps the most valued diners are potential employers from the catering industry who are able to meet potential employees in a professional environment. The quietly spoken, headmasterly Dawson admits he took a chance when he decided to back chef Alberto "Al" Crisci, the prison's chief catering manager, who came up with the idea for The Clink three years ago. "Under Al's leadership we already had high-quality training in the main kitchen. When he suggested this restaurant, I took a deep breath and decided that the risks were manageable."
Crisci is in full-blown chef mode overseeing the preparation of today's menu on the other side of the pass. Meanwhile the immaculately attired maître d' arrives with our drinks (sparkling water for me, fruit juice for the governor – alcohol is not an option in prison) and summons a waiter to take our order. "He won't mind me telling you this, but he used to be a prisoner here," says Dawson. "Not the waiter – Dean, the maître d'. He was trained in the main kitchen. That's what we aspire to do: not just inspire change but make it a practical possibility."
I know something about prison food. For 20 years, while serving a life sentence for murder, I lived on it. My first taste came in Wandsworth prison in 1984. I was on 23-hour "bang up". We were let out of our cells for just a few minutes at a time: to empty our toilet buckets ("slop out"), to fill our plastic bowls with water for washing and to collect our food from the servery. Mealtimes were the liveliest periods outside the cell. A sex offender or an informer being bashed in the recess were regular occurrences. Arguments over food were another. The men serving took the brunt, being blamed for it being cold, for the black, hard lumps in the barely mashed potatoes or the spent matchsticks floating in the translucent spaghetti. It may have been inherently inedible, but any perception that one man was receiving less than his neighbour could easily result in serious violence. Mornings were the quietest. I never saw anyone arguing over the porridge, not until they found the empty bags in which it was delivered to the prison in the back of one of the kitchen storerooms. Large letters stamped all over the sacks made absolutely clear the contents: "Canadian Pig Meal – Grade 3".
During my time inside I witnessed changes and improvements in the prison diet, but it was always hit and miss depending upon which prison you were in and who was in charge. For me, and for many of those around me, prison food was just fuel to keep us alive. If it was occasionally good and enjoyable, then that was a bonus.
Here in High Down, food is more than fuel for hungry stomachs or a means to adopting a healthier eating lifestyle, even. In this prison, food can offer hope and inspire dreams and maybe even change forever a troubled and trouble-causing life.
Built in 1992 on the site of the former Banstead lunatic asylum, HM Prison High Down is a "local" or holding jail which receives prisoners from the crown courts in Guildford and Croydon as well as magistrates' courts in the surrounding area. Today it houses around 1,150 category B and category C male prisoners serving anything from just a few weeks for minor offences to life for murder. A minority will see out their time here, but most will be allocated to longer-term "training" prisons where regimes are generally more varied and work oriented.
What really makes High Down stand out is its attitude to food. Before Crisci began working here food was so bland its nickname was "Piedown". Before The Clink, Crisci had already devised a monthly "gourmet lunch" programme in which prisoners he trained would provide special lunches for prospective employers.
Crisci has a number of high-profile supporters, one of whom is chef Giorgio Locatelli, a regular visitor to The Clink since its earliest days. "George is a very good friend to us," says Crisci. "During one of his visits here a little while ago one of our lads asked him for a job and he didn't hesitate to say yes."
Initially financed by £300,000 of fundraising, The Clink is now a registered charity, with minimal burden on the taxpayer. "My budget pays for heating and lighting and one member of supervising staff," says Dawson. "In terms of value for money it doesn't get any better than this."
Earlier in the day I toured the main prison kitchen and met some of the staff and prisoners who work there. Trainees who shine can apply to work in The Clink, and although distinctly separate, the two operations are intrinsically linked.
The main kitchen is a big operation, providing two hot meals a day for the prison. In many other prisons, lunch is often no more than a sandwich, crisps and a piece of fruit, and the only hot meal served each day is the evening meal. All prisons now provide an option system, usually limited to stews, pies and pasta. The highlight of this evening at High Down is Jamaican pattie curry with rice and peas.
"People need to be able to look forward to eating well-prepared, well-cooked food," explains Richard Davis, who organises the training programme. In days gone by, prison cooks were usually prison officers often with questionable food skills. Now prison catering staff are civilian professionals employed by the prison service, and are expected to impart their knowledge to the prisoners they supervise. Plastered with NVQ certificates, the walls of the kitchen classroom are testament to their success.
According to the National Audit Office, the budget for prisoner diets averages out at around £2 per prisoner per day. For schoolchildren it is under £1 per meal. Hospital patients are allocated £3.50. (Open prisons receive less because many inmates eat outside the prison. Young offender institutions are allocated more, as young people burn more energy and require a higher level of nutrition.) At High Down the daily budget per prisoner is £2.10.
I head for the pasta station to watch tortellini being made. "It's not that difficult once you know what you are doing," says 25-year-old Tony, currently serving a three-year sentence (prison rules prevent him from explaining what he's here for). Tony is typical of many of the young men in prison who, away from the context of their crime, present as bright and likeable. He tells me this is his seventh prison sentence since the age of 18. "I want it to be my last," he says. "I want to get a recognised qualification which will help me stay away from the lifestyle that keeps bringing me back inside. I'll be moving on to the NVQ in cooking. My Italian nan wants me to be a cook. All the men in her family are cooks, and I want her to be proud of me for once."
Richard and I follow one of the trolleys along the corridors and through the yards up to one of the houseblocks. Inside, behind large steel gates, a queue is already forming at the servery. Plastic plates in hand, the men appear a little agitated. And noisy. It takes me back immediately to my own experience of prison meal queues, arguably the most tense and unpredictable times in prison. I feel slightly nervous. From behind me I hear a voice. "Are you a journalist?" I turn around and nod a "yes" at the slightly built man with unkempt hair who's addressing me. He's angry. "Well, can you tell the governor we want beans with our chips. Not peas – beans."
Two and a half years ago the government decreed that prisoners should be offered "appetising and enjoyable menus" at mealtimes, but you can't please all of the people all of the time, especially in a prison. But the food I see being served looks like it would pass the test. Others in the queue who have served time in different prisons tell me the food here is the best they have ever experienced. "It's better than what I eat on the outside," says one.
Back in The Clink, the Cotechino sausage is indeed delicious, and after a superb Bakewell tart and custard to finish, the governor leaves the table and I am joined at last by chef Crisci. Stocky and tough talking, with a firm handshake, he seems like a man in charge. College trained, Crisci was awarded his MBE in 2008 for services to the catering industry and worked in several West End restaurants including Mayfair's Michelin-starred Mirabelle before running his own coffee shop/wine bar for 10 years. Eventually, with a young family, he decided he needed some job security, so when he saw an ad for a catering position in High Down he applied.
"There was no real cooking involved at first," says Crisci, "but it was close to home and it was four days on, four days off." Charismatic and determined, for almost five years he had another job during his days off from the prison until he was promoted to catering services manager and took overall charge of the prison's kitchens. "I still had ambition," he says, "and I could see the potential for training prisoners. I had never been inside a prison before. But when I saw the reality, my view was that if it was one of my children in there, I would want to know that they were being improved by prison, not made worse. Once the training was underway, though, I could see that for it to really work they had to be able to get real jobs."
His first idea of gourmet lunches for senior business people from the catering industry was a great success. "A lot of the guys went on to get good jobs from that," he says. When the prison was expanded in 2008, Crisci seized his opportunity and asked if he could turn what was then an old storeroom into a high-end restaurant in which prisoners interested in catering could experience real working conditions. Since then he and Dawson have never looked back.
Nor have some of the prisoners. Take Paul, the man who landed a job with Giorgio Locatelli. He's since been released on a home detention tag and has a probationary position at Locanda Locatelli. When I speak to Locatelli he's ebullient about his connection with The Clink. "When I go there I am always impressed," he says. "I want them to aim high. In my kitchen I demand perfection, and it is no different at the prison. I can see that for many of those boys, had they had someone to push them, to make demands for them to show their true value, they would not be there. For me it is a humbling experience."
I ask him how Paul is doing. "There is no discount for where he has come from," he says. "We expect from him the same as from anyone else doing this job. But I hope with all my heart he will stay. I tell him: 'This is your new life.'"
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