The Clink Restaurant, staffed by inmates² from Cardiff and Prescoed prisons, beat establishments run by celebrity³ chefs including Gordon Ramsay and Jamie Oliver to take 10th place.

 

Included in the top 10 was michelin-starred Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons in Great Milton, Oxfordshire, which came third.

 

Reviews on website TripAdvisor were used to decide who should win the 2015 Travellers' Choice Restaurants awards.

 

Customers said the "friendly and informative⁴ staff" put other waiters to shame.

 

The 96-seat restaurant, serving breakfast and lunch, opened to the public in 2012. Thirty inmates are each paid £14 for a 40-hour week.

 

The Clink has been credited with helping⁵ to slash⁶ reoffending rates. Latest figures show it has reduced the rate of the released prisoners who worked there to 12.5 per cent.

 

TripAdvisor spokesman James Kay said: "Given how competitive the UK restaurant industry is, the fact that The Clink Restaurant is the only winning Welsh restaurant demonstrates the incredibly high standard of food and service that the team consistently delivers to customers."

 

It was also named top spot in Cardiff out of 946 restaurants in the city.

 

Opened in 2012, The Clink Cardiff is now one of four restaurants run by prisoners across the UK through The Clink Charity.

 

The charity also has restaurants at HMPs Brixton, High Down and Styal and aims to reduce reoffending through projects that train and give practical skills to prisoners to aid their rehabilitation⁷.

 

Chris Moore, chief executive of The Clink Charity, said: "The whole team is delighted to have made it into the top 10 restaurants in the UK by TripAdvisor users, and to be ranked so highly against almost 1,000 restaurants in the city of Cardiff is a huge achievement for us."

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