First Dates’ Fred Sirieix wants to open more prison restaurants

The first opened at HMP Isis in 2017, with Wormwood Scrubs following in 2021 and then two more, at Styal and Lincoln.

At HMP Berwyn, the restaurant is part of a wellbeing hub, which includes a barber’s, classrooms, and health interventions.

Mr Sirieix said: “It’s a very well set up restaurant, a great team there, because invariably, the success of the right courses is about the trainers that we have on the ground.

“It’s all about the managers running the restaurant and the head chef who’s teaching the men.”

Mr Sirieix wants the charity to expand into women’s prisons in the future too, and he has high ambitions for the inmates who train with the charity.

“We want to be the best in class. We want to be the best at training and developing and creating opportunities for these young men,” he said.

“We want every single one of them to have a job. And if they have a job, and they do well, then this going to be the best advertising for the scheme and for more men to join.

“Instead of staying in their cells doing nothing, they go to the restaurant and they learn, and it’s about for them to get that sense of satisfaction and knowing that they can to do something incredible with their lives.”