Blank locker required.
This is the condition to be fulfilled in order to be able to reserve a table in this new restaurant in Marseille.
The particularity ?
You have to go to the Baumettes penitentiary center, where the kitchen is run by prisoners.
Next October, the “
Beaux Mets
” restaurant will open its doors to the general public.
A moment that promises to be unique, both for customers - this is a first in France - as well as for the occupants of the center.
Each year, about forty prisoners will be responsible for about as many covers, spread over two services.
They will work in the dishwasher, in the kitchen and in the dining room, under the supervision and advice of three catering professionals.
Occupational integration
The places in the restaurant will be open to prisoners of the support structure at the exit (SAS) of Baumettes.
A structure that welcomes 80 people at the end of their sentence and whose release is planned in the coming months.
For these, such an opportunity constitutes an important element of reintegration.
They will be able to learn the rules of hygiene, group work, hierarchy and acquire certain social skills, alongside customers and chefs.
The idea had come to the prison administration after having observed several examples of this kind, held in particular in Milan or London.
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“Cooking allows people to be valued
,” exclaims Armand Hurault, director of the Festin association, which is carrying out the project alongside Les Baumettes.
According to him, gastronomy carries and inspires.
It "
allows you to learn skills, in a sector which is under great tension, especially in a tourist region like ours
", he told the daily
20 minutes
.
Christine Charbonnier, the secretary general of the interregional management of prison services in Marseille, sees in this initiative a second way to facilitate this integration: to improve the image that the French have, " out of
ignorance
" of the prison and its occupants.
At
20 minutes
, she expresses her wish, to "
deconstruct the image that civil society may have of detainees.
A prisoner can evolve and the objective that we have is that he finds a place in society when he leaves
”.
Mediterranean cuisine on the menu
From Monday to Friday, the restaurant will welcome the public for lunch, in “
prison
” conditions.
Only people with a clean record will have a right of entry and they will have to submit to a few rules, in particular leaving their mobile phone and change at the entrance.
Alcohol will be strictly prohibited.
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On the menu, bistro dishes with Mediterranean flavors and southern herbs.
Some ingredients will be harvested directly from the vegetable garden of the Baumettes penitentiary centre.
