The Open Door unlocks paths to a culinary career for prisoners

Next week, a pop-up restaurant with a difference will open its doors. The venue? Cork Prison – and the menu will be cooked by inmates.

Culinary Arts Lecturer at MTU JJ Healy working with some of the prisoners in preparation for the pop-up restaurant Open Door which will take place at Cork Prison on the 5th of April. Picture: Dan Linehan

At 6.30pm, next Tuesday, 50 people will show up on the Northside of Cork city for what is surely the most curiously exclusive Irish dining experience in many a long year.

Mobile phones are completely prohibited — there will be no Instagramming of tonight’s fare. Passing, one by one, through a humongous floor-to-ceiling metal turnstile and having furnished photo ID, diners will submit to security procedures identical to those in any airport: baggage screening, body scans, follow-up search if necessary.