While some may know Fred Sirieix as the charismatic maître d’ from the hit Channel 4 show First Dates, there is one specific community that know him as the man who gave them a second chance. In December 2015, he launched The Right Course, a charity that turns staff canteens in prisons into high-street-like restaurants run by prisoners. By using the existing space and equipment, the initiative allows prisoners to gain industry-recognised qualifications and work in the hospitality sector upon release.
Around 15 years ago, after seeing a wave of crime in his local area of south-east London, Sirieix started working with people who found themselves in trouble with the law. “I just thought to myself, if I want things to change then I need to take action myself,” he says. “And if I want to make the world a better place, I need to change myself.” When he visited the young offenders unit at Her Majesty’s Prison (HMP) Isis in Thameside, London, he realised the staff mess could easily become a training restaurant like the ones in a catering college. “It’s very simple – it’s basically transforming staff messes in prison into training restaurants run by the prisoners, so they run the front of house as well as the kitchen,” he says. Since then, The Right Course has set up two restaurants: at Isis and at HMP Wormwood Scrubs, which was formally opened in October 2021 by London Mayor Sadiq Khan, whose office helped to fund the refurbishment.
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