Inmates prepare criminally tasty meals for charity
On reservation, guests are subjected to a background check. They are admitted in groups, their mobile phones and bags confiscated, and they then submit to metal detector tests.
At the candlelit tables inside a deconsecrated chapel of what was originally a 14th-15th century castle, the meal itself is eaten with plastic cutlery.
But even though this is the Fortezza Medicea top-security prison, the white wine — Fattoria Sorbaiano — flows.
“The standard of the food is fantastic ... the place is incredible,” said diner Sharon Kennedy, a resident of Volterra originally from Scotland.
The inmates have swapped slacks for shirts and bow ties for a night to cook up a sumptuous meal for diners who want to sample a taste of prison life.
Part of a project raising money for charity, the aim is also to teach cooking and waiting skills that could help prisoners find work when they are released.
The scheme, which turns the prison into a restaurant for several nights a year, began in 2006. Guests reserve a table for the meal priced at €35 a head through a tourism agency.
Surrounded by watch towers and security devices, the waiters serve tuna tartare in citrus fruit rinds, pate with sweet wine and couscous with fish.
“This is a great thing,” said inmate Arena Aniello, 39, from Naples. He has been in jail since 1993 for homicide: tonight, he is a waiter. “(Prison life) is like a photocopy machine — you leave your cell, you go to work, you work out — the day is always the same so this is a great thing.”
The 30-strong team of cooks, kitchen hands, waiters and sommeliers has been carefully selected. There are 150 prisoners at Fortezza Medicea, and those in for crimes linked with Mafia, drug-trafficking and kidnapping do not participate.
