My Sunday lunch was much more than a delicious three-course feast. It was a unique experience at a location you wouldn’t necessarily associate with a wonderful dining experience, or consider as a private hire option. The Editor of PA Life was excited to visit The Clink Restaurant at HMP Brixton…
We were asked to arrive 30 minutes before our lunch reservation to allow for the security checks. After our ID documents were checked and we’ve put our phones, keys and other personal items in the lockers provided, it was time to follow a guard who took us through an airport style security procedure. This is not a restaurant for family lunches with children as diners need to be 18 or over.
The restaurant is a detached building and rather charming looking with planters outside. Inside it looks like a standard contemporary restaurant and everyone who works there wears a smart apron over their matching T-shirts. The service is very smooth and our server was very pleasant and happy to chat to us about the menu, giving us recommendations, as well as tell us about how much he enjoys working at The Clink Restaurant.
The restaurant is operated by The Clink Charity, which gives people in prison the chance to train for City & Guilds qualifications in Food & Beverage Service, Professional Cookery, Barista Skills, and Food Hygiene, serving members of the public inside the working prison itself.
The restaurant can seat up to 70, and is also available for private hire. If you can’t make it to Brixton, but are keen to support the charity, you can make use of their catering service Catered By Clink for your events.
What was our Sunday lunch like at The Clink Restaurant at HMP Brixton
We opted fro the three-course set lunch menu which had vegan and fish options as well as traditional roast beef or chicken supreme served with Yorkshire pudding and garlic and rosemary roast potatoes. My starter was a lovely seasonal roasted Delica pumpkin with chestnut puree, pomegranate, crispy sage and Italian bitter leaves. My guest had the hot smoked salmon pate served with sourdough crostini, pickled beetroot and herb salad. The roast beef was very much enjoyed by my guest and I loved the delicate pan fried lemon sole garnished with shrimps and samphire and served in plenty of lemon butter sauce with a great potato puree.
The portions are generous here, but we had to still try the puddings too as they sounded too delicious to ignore. My dark chocolate pudding with cherry compote and toasted pistachios was possibly a too rich a choice for me. The buttermilk pudding, vanilla poached pear and the yummy coconut shards was a lighter choice, no problem leaving the plate clean after that.
The restaurant is alcohol free. Instead it serves lovely non-alcoholic cocktails such as blueberry & ginger mojito and elderflower & cucumber sprits and also Seedlip non-alcoholic spirits with Fever Tree mixers. The extensive drinks menu has also got lagers and pale ale as well as kombucha and other soft drinks and a good selection of coffees and other hot drinks.
The Clink Restaurant welcomes Christmas dinners and lunch with festive dining menus
The Clink Restaurant at HMP Brixton has launched its Christmas Menus for 2026, available from Tuesday 1st December until Sunday 20th December.
This year’s Christmas menu includes fabulous dishes such as a chicken croquette with charred sprout salad, pickled cranberries and chestnut purée; a beetroot gravlax of salmon with crème fraîche, watercress and clementine; or a kataifi pastry-wrapped goats’ cheese with truffle honey-glazed beetroot.
Traditional roast dinners are also on the menu. Roast turkey with chestnut stuffing and Yorkshire pudding, and roast sirloin of beef with horseradish sauce – alongside a pan-fried pollock with butterbean stew and a wild mushroom-stuffed hispi cabbage for vegan guests.
To finish, a Pear and stem ginger pudding, Whipped vanilla cheesecake with spiced blackcurrant and pear compote, and Warm mince pies with clotted cream. As the prison is alcohol-free, there are a range of creative mocktails on offer also, from a seasonal Clementine Mojito to a Blackberry Grove, a refreshing twist on the classic Bramble.
The restaurant regularly ranks among TripAdvisor’s top London restaurants to visit, and in September 2026, Benugo and The Clink Charity launched a five-year partnership to create long-term hospitality career pathways for prison leavers, combining employment opportunities, mentoring and training support.
Bookings must be made at least seven working days in advance; all diners must be 18 or over and bring physical photo ID. Guests pass through airport-style security on arrival, with phones and personal items stored in lockers before being escorted to the restaurant. The venue is alcohol-free also during the Christmas season.
Usual opening times are below and private hire is also available, but enquire early to secure your date:
- Monday closed
- Tuesday & Wednesday 12–3 pm
- Thursday 12–3 pm, 6–9 pm
- Friday closed
- Saturday closed
- Sunday 12–3 pm
More about The Clink Charity
Founded in 2009, The Clink Charity remains unique in UK prisons operating a restaurant open to the public, an award-winning bakery, both at HMP Brixton, and Clink Events, a prestigious catering social enterprise serving venues across London from HMP Downview women’s prison in Surrey and Herne Hill in South London. The Charity also delivers two horticulture training programmes at HMP Send and HMP Erlestoke.
In the community, we operate The Clink Training Café in South London – an initiative designed to support and train young people identified as being at risk of entering the criminal justice system. The cafe provides qualifications and enables pathways into employment post-graduation. A second cafe is opening in Guildford.
The Clink’s mission is to prevent and reduce reoffending through training, rehabilitation, and support, both in prisons and in the community using a range of hospitality and horticulture qualifications.
By providing education and training, and through supporting people into employment post-release, we reduce reoffending rates and create stable futures.
In 2025, The Clink Charity supported over 400 people in prison and in the community, delivering more than 120,000 hours of accredited training. Clink Events delivered 239 events serving over 43,000 guests.
