Restaurant Interno, is a restaurant in la Cárcel de Mujeres de San Diego, Cartagena’s women’s prison. Interno’s cooks have been trained by professional chefs, and the waitresses have also received training. The project was created with the motto: “Segundas oportunidades.” Here the inmates are given a second chance and will soon be able to reintegrate better into society. Through training and experience gained, the cooks often have jobs even before they leave prison. With the proceeds from the restaurant, living conditions in prison are improved.

Dinner
From the moment we walked into Restaurante Interno, the atmosphere was nice; serene, a cozy setting and quiet Latin music. Because of this ambiance, we almost forgot we were in a prison. Until we saw the bars in front of the kitchen! It was a strange idea to eat in a prison, but it was also nice that we could make a small contribution to improving the living conditions of the women.

Star chefs
We chose an appetizer of Ceviche in coconut milk, a main course of -Cartagena-style steak with coconut rice and a dessert with 3 preparations of coconut. We could indeed tell that the cooks were trained by Michelin “star chefs,” because the food was beautifully prepared and tasted delicious.

The lady in the service was friendly, but somewhat shy, so it did not come to a chat. Because the food was served in quickly, we were done in an hour. Afterwards, we thought it would have been helpful to say we wanted to take it easy and allow time between the courses.

After dinner,  we took a taxi back to Getsemaní. Here we ended the evening on the cozy Plaza de Trinidad, with a glass of wine and some people watching, while we thougt of the women in the prison and their untold stories.