DINERS are flocking to what could perhaps be termed the most exclusive restaurant in Italy — inside a top security prison, where the chefs and waiters are Mafiosi, robbers and murderers.

Serenaded by Bruno, a pianist doing life for murder, the clientele eat inside a deconsecrated chapel set behind high walls, watch towers, searchlights and security cameras of Fortezza Medicea, at Volterra near Pisa.

Under the watchful eye of armed prison warders, a 20-strong team of chefs, kitchen hands and waiters prepares 120 covers for diners who have all undergone strict security checks. Tables are booked weeks in advance.

The Mafia may be in charge, but there is no horse's head on this menu.

Instead, a smart, mainly middle-aged crowd tucks into a vegetarian signature menu, cooked up by head chef Egidio — serving life for murder.

The restaurant opened two months ago and has proved so popular that Italy's prison department is thinking of trying it in other jails.

Diners are thoroughly vetted by the Ministry of Justice in Rome and anyone with a dubious background is turned down.

Diners go through checkpoints and past the cells, before sitting down in the candlelit restaurant.

In the kitchen, Egidio, a burly 50-year-old from southern Italy, reigns over his team of six chefs like an Italian Gordon Ramsey.

Seventeen years into his sentence, he is thinking of going into the restaurant business when they finally let him out.

"Like any Italian I take my food very, very seriously," he said.