Wellington chef Martin Bosley has been prepping the six inmates since November in the prison kitchen, to dish up their fancy menu which will be prepared and served on the prison grounds.

Bosley revealed he had ‘grown to like’ the criminal cooks, after his initial apprehension about the project, in a report by stuff.co.uk.

‘I had never been in a prison before and, when I first turned up, I was apprehensive, nervous and overly cautious’, he said.

‘I walked into the kitchen and one of the prisoners had a tower of chicken pieces in front of him that he was madly chopping with a huge kitchen knife. That was pretty confronting’.

The $70 per-head menu will include cedar plank salmon canapés, savannah beef and oxtail sauce and duck with parfait – a selection which had the prisoners bemused.

‘When I first saw the menu, I didn’t know what half of the stuff was’, one inmate revealed.

‘Before I came to prison, cheese on toast was my speciality’.

Image: New Zealand Book