The Clink: London’s most exclusive restaurant

The Clink is arguably the nation's most exclusive restaurant, boasting reviews and interest from food critics and chef's alike. Most recently from Charles Campion, who described the food as “sublime”.

Built inside HMP Highdown in Surrey, The Clink was devised as a final training ground for it's students of NVQ level catering, and helping them gain practical experience and exposure to the catering industry.

Creator and tutor, Chef Alberto Crisci MBE, devised the project to tackle to problem of reoffending and to promote the issue of rehabilitation. Chef Crisci is the catering manager at Highdown Prison, Surrey, where he has worked for 15 years. Alongside the running and production of The Clink, Crisci continues to manage Catering within the prison.

Previously he worked and trained at the prestigious Mirabelle Restaurant in London, and is the Winner of the Butler Trust and BBC Radio Four Food and Farming Awards.

In 2009 he received an MBE for his services to the catering industry. It was Chef Crisci’s dynamic and determined approach to rehabilitation which propelled Her Majesty’s Prison Service in to highlighting the significance of rehabilitation, and agreeing to build The Clink.

When it comes to the inmates, his attitude is not biased, he looks at the whole project as an opportunity to better and change inmates attitudes and lives.

“Once the inmates comes to prison, that is their punishment; it could be your son. If it was your son, would you prefer that he was banged up and beaten and treated with disrespect?

"As far as I am concerned his punishment is he is in prison, he has to do what he is told and that is it.

"Bare in mind some of these people have no-one, so when they come out they have nothing no job, no family, no job and no qualifications the likelihood is that they will come back.

“It is a very short term view to say get in them in bang them up, treat them badly and they’ll never come back. If they have no other choice, no means of supporting themselves and nobody will give them a job, the chances are they will definitely come back,” says Crisci.

His ideas began when he introduced City & Guilds NVQ training, which he is now able to accompany with experience in a professional and highly accredited restaurant.

The idea is, by providing inmates with this kind of opportunity, it will dramatically increase if not secure their chances of gaining employment upon release. In the mean time, inmates gain self-respect as they are offered an opportunity to change their lives.

When I attended The Clink it was the most surreal experience of my life, and the most humbling.

The food produced was exquisite and so was the service. It was quite overwhelming to think that these men, who cheerfully and professionally prepared and served my meal would be locked up in a cell by night.

There is nothing that can prepare you for it, it is as if you step in to another world from the moment you pass through security, high wired fences, massive concrete blocks. Then, The Clink door is opened, and the world changes again.

Am I in Mayfair? NO, I'm in a prison.

Chef Crisci is also a supporter of locally produced food, and backs local producers by using in house produce. Seasonal vegetables are also grown by inmates are used regularly in the menu.

Guests of The clink are limited to invite only, and it is arguably London’s most exclusive restaurant, with a menu to rival Michelin star chef’s, a service that is next to none, and an exclusivity which contends London’s finest dining venues.

The Clink encourages attendance of prospective employers within the catering industry and beyond and The Clink also receives support from numerous foundations, charities, businesses, organizations and individuals.

The restaurant opened in May 2009, as a non-profit business and all funds received go back into The Clink Charity. It is a project which opens minds and which changes everything; not least the future of our society. The Clink is an extraordinary innovation and gift to British society.

NB: Inmates who are able to apply to work at The Clink are strictly limited, and inmates with a violent history are not given these privileges. For more information visit http://www.theclinkonline.com/