Diners
are flocking to what could perhaps be termed the most exclusive
restaurant in Italy - one located inside a top security prison,
where
the chefs and waiters are Mafiosi, robbers and murderers.
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Santolo Matrone is serving 24 years for murder, and wine to customers
Serenaded
by Bruno, a pianist doing life for murder,
the clientele eat inside a
deconsecrated chapel set behind the 60 ft-high walls, watch towers,
searchlights and security cameras of the daunting
500-year-old Fortezza
Medicea, at Volterra near Pisa.Under the watchful
eye of armed prison warders, a 20-strong team of chefs, kitchen hands
and waiters prepares 120 covers for diners who have all undergone
strict security checks. Tables are booked up weeks in advance.
The
prison director, Maria Grazia Giampiccolo, said the inmates had
developed a flair for their cooking: "I feel haute cuisine in a place
like this prepares the inmates for when they are eventually released.
The guests enjoy their meals and although the security seems
at first
very daunting and imposing, they get over it quite quickly and forget
about the guards."The Mafia may be in charge,
but
there is no horse's head on this menu. Instead, a smart, middle-aged
crowd tucks into a vegetarian signature menu,
cooked up by head chef
Egidio - serving life for murder - and keenly priced at €25 (£17.50),
including a glass of wine with each course.
The
restaurant opened two months ago and has proved so popular that Italy's
prison department is thinking of trying it in other jails.
Securing
a table is as tricky as getting past the sternest maître d'. Diners are
thoroughly vetted by the Ministry of Justice in Rome and anyone with a
dubious background is turned down.But at least
there is no danger of the meal being disrupted by the annoying chirrup
of mobile phones. They have to be handed in, along with handbags, and
ID must be produced before passing through a metal detector at the top
of stairs leading into the complex, which houses 150 inmates.Diners go through a series of checkpoints and past the cells, before sitting down in the candlelit restaurant.In
the kitchen, Egidio, a burly 50-year-old from Taranto, in southern
Italy, reigns over his team of six chefs like an Italian Gordon Ramsay.
"The pasta is boiling over! More salt, less garlic! Keep stirring the
pasta sauce!" he shouts.Seventeen years into his
sentence, he is thinking of going into the restaurant business when
they finally let him out. "Like any Italian I take my food very, very
seriously. I like to be sure the diners are satisfied and they don't
just enjoy the food, but enjoy it with the same passion that I prepare
it."Perhaps unsurprisingly, given his record, diners have been reluctant to criticise."Before
this I couldn't even fry an egg but now here I am preparing five-course
dinners and I have not had any complaints," he said.Most
of the dishes the restaurant serves are southern Italian staples from
organised crime hotspots such as Puglia, Sicily and Naples.Somelier
Santolo Matrone, 41, from Naples, landed behind bars after getting into
"a spot of bother" when he was younger, which earned him a 24-year
sentence for murder. He, too, is hoping to use his new skills when he
gets out in seven years."I'd like to think that when I get out of here, I can start a family and maybe get a job in a restaurant or hotel," he said.The
unique nature of the restaurant has, however, imposed some
restrictions. "Guards watch over the inmates in the kitchens at all
times and the cutlery used is plastic, as are the plates," said Miss
Giampiccolo. "The main thing is trust and we trust the inmates to
behave. If we didn't, we would not allow this to happen.''Diners
professed themselves delighted. "When I heard about it I thought it
sounded fun, so we booked a table and I have to say the food has been
very good," said off-duty policeman Alessandra Ciabattini, 36."The
fact that the dishes are prepared by murderers, armed robbers,
Mafiosi
or terrorists doesn't really bother me, though I might be worried if
someone had been convicted of poisoning." |
