Upon entering Al Fresco in the Ballarò neighborhood, we are struck by both the kind welcome and the special location – the restaurant is set in a garden enclosed within the walls of Casa San Francesco, a former 17th-century convent, lit by strings of lights dangling between plants and saplings. There is an immediate sense of openness, freedom and freshness.
This is no coincidence: While “al fresco” in Italian can refer to the chill of being out in the open air, it is also an expression used to mean “life in prison.” The double meaning makes sense in this case. Despite its first impression as a regular restaurant, perhaps the most special feature of Al Fresco is that working in the kitchen and dining room are former inmates. Social worker Lucia Lauro and chef Francesco Gambino met with us to chat about the project.
Lucia, the founder of Al Fresco, has been working as a social worker for 25 years, but is still as full of energy as if it were her first. “We are a garden bistro with a corner bar, restaurant and pizzeria whose purpose is to rehabilitate former inmates,” she explains. “Our goals are educational, both in the kitchen and in the dining room, but we don’t want it to have the appearance of a social organization; it can’t be the customers who pay the consequences of inexperience. Customers who come here do not know that [the restaurant is] a social project, and when we tell them at the end of the meal, they are amazed.” Al Fresco’s menu is varied and changes seasonally, with a focus on great pizzas but also fresh fish and seafood.
We are approached by a young waiter in his mid-twenties with tattooed forearms and a welcoming smile, who hands us glasses of white wine before discreetly walking away. Here, the waiters, cooks, bartender, pizza-maker, dishwasher and general employees all have difficult juvenile prison backgrounds and arrive with no experience in the restaurant business. Many of them come from underserved communities and grew up in tough neighborhoods. Theirs is a fate from which it is difficult to escape, due in part to the social stigma with which ex-convicts are branded that often creates barriers as they try to rebuild their lives.
The cooperative that runs Al Fresco was born out of another local culinary project: Cotti in Fragranza, a cookie factory inside Palermo’s Malaspina Juvenile Detention Facility that bakes delicious sweets marketed in modern, colorful packaging. This name is also based on a play on words: The translation is literally “cooked in fragrance,” but is reminiscent of the Italian idiom colti in flagranza, which means “caught in flagrante.” Running the cookie factory is Simone Gambino, Chef Francesco’s brother, who works with young men in prison to help them prepare for career opportunities after their release. “It was an important foundation,” Lucia says of Cotti in Fragranza. “A seed that allowed us to grow and gave us the credibility to open Al Fresco. Prison is our root and we continue to keep the laboratory there as a political gesture. In fact, we believe that prison labor is a right.” Many former inmates who have worked in the cookie factory are referred to Al Fresco, giving them the opportunity to continue their career in a supportive environment.
“Those who come to work here at Al Fresco never want to leave,” says Francesco. “It’s challenging. You have to try to be strict but not too strict, and create team spirit. [Employees] start at the bottom of the ladder and then grow, because being a dishwasher or a kitchen delivery boy teaches you to have respect for each role. Our goal is to help people grow.”
As we speak, we see groups of customers arriving, being greeted and taken to tables. The city has received the project very well. “There is so much demand. Customers come here by word-of-mouth, and when they leave, they have less prejudice against former inmates,” says Lucia, who had to learn the basics of catering to make the project happen. Francesco, meanwhile, has also embraced the role of teacher at Al Fresco. “I have been working in restaurants all my life, since I was 14 years old, but this is my first experience in a social restaurant,” he explains. “I started from scratch with [the employees] as well. I had to start over and teach them the basics. There were difficulties, but we overcame them day by day.”
In addition to Al Fresco’s excellent fresh seafood options – swordfish, calamari and shrimp, just to name a few – we loved the taglieri, a board of Sicilian cold cuts and cheeses (from a Ragusano DOP to prosciutto crudo from the Madonie mountain range at the north of the island). Classic pizzas are available, but we also recommend the “Mortazza” pizza with mozzarella, mortadella, Bronte pistachio pesto and burrata cheese, and the focaccias made with Tumminia flour, an ancient Sicilian variety of wheat.
“There is no fixed identity outlined at the beginning. Everything is constantly evolving, and we experiment a lot,” Francesco says of the food at Al Fresco. “It’s all about giving value to the food, the seasonality of the ingredients, the service, the mise en place, the welcoming of the customer at the door and accompanying him to the table.” Judging by Al Fresco’s success, there’s no underestimating the power of the restaurant’s kindness and welcoming spirit – both on its customers and its staff.
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