Melissa* was busy robbing a convenience store in Brandon, Manitoba, when she was struck by a moment of clarity. In the form of a pool cue. A drug user since she was 12, she ran away from home at 14 and did her first stint in rehab at 16. She stayed clean long enough to graduate high school and attend college on a basketball scholarship before relapsing again, this time even harder. When not scoring cocaine or crystal meth, she was engaging in petty crime for a local gang. Now desperate, high and armed with only a buck knife, she was face to face with a clerk unwilling to give up the till without a fight. "He started bashing my head in with this pool cue," she recalls. "So I ran." She was arrested four days later and, after confessing to a previous crime, served 13 months for armed robbery. Once released she headed West, determined to make a fresh start. Which is how she found herself on TV, waiting tables at Conviction Kitchen.

Conviction Kitchen is reality television with a benevolent agenda. The premise-created by celebrated Toronto chef Marc Thuet and his longtime partner Biana Zorich-is simple: hire a staff of ex-cons and recovering drug addicts with no previous restaurant experience and open a room in eight weeks with cameras capturing every exhilarating second. No easy task; Alsatian-born Thuet is a perfectionist whose exacting brand of French cuisine-think pappardelle paired with braised rabbit and bluefoots or seared sea bream and diver scallops swimming in savoury bouillabaisse-has built four successful restaurants. He’s also a recovering drug addict who has been clean for five years. And these two halves of him are what drive this seemingly crazy experiment: "I wanted to do something for people like me," Thuet explains, "people who genuinely had something to offer if only given the chance." With his bleached hair, tattoos and air of perpetual dishevelment, Thuet is ballasted in this quest by the meticulously presented Zorich who, with her aristocratic cheekbones and flaxen hair pulled into a severe bun, runs the front of house with a half-iron, half-velvet fist.

After a successful first season in Toronto, the pair began their search for another city to film season two. Montreal was deemed too close; Ottawa too boring. "Plus, all of our contestants would be politicians," Thuet quips. They settled on Vancouver. "Vancouver had exactly what a show like ours needed," explains Zorich. "An abundance of fresh West Coast ingredients and people from the Downtown Eastside in need of an opportunity."

They set up shop in Delilah’s, a former hot spot in Vancouver’s West End that had recently closed its doors, and began their search for staff. An ad was posted on Craigslist "with one stipulation," Zorich asserts vehemently. "No murderers, rapists or child molesters." The response was overwhelming. "I didn’t believe it at first," says Petr, a tall, soft-spoken Slav who earned his criminal record at the age of 20. "No previous experience and a criminal past? I thought it was a hoax." Tired of nailing interviews only to be turned down once a background check was performed, Petr applied. On his first day in the kitchen, he needed seven stitches after nearly severing his index finger doing battle with a mango ("a good kid, but not chef material," Thuet shrugs) and was promptly shuttled into bartending.
The turnover rate in the kitchen was high. "People would apply just to get on TV, but had no intention of actually putting the work in," recalls Thuet. He’d constructed a demanding menu, requiring precision, timing and a deft touch. The Nass River sockeye could easily be ruined by an extra ten seconds in the pan. His beloved Alsatian pfluttas, quenelles of pasta with Fraser Canyon rabbit and morels, are (pardon the pun) murder to execute properly. Couple this with Thuet’s willingness to loudly let people know when his standards aren’t met and keeping people around was no small feat. "At one point, we had only one person left in the kitchen," he sighs. Just ask Jim, who became the second longest-serving member of staff when he hit 13 days. Prior to donning a white jacket, his only experience with legitimate employment had been in construction. He’s battled addiction his entire life and served a two-year stint for credit card fraud. On parole, he lives in a halfway house in New Westminster; he commutes over an hour by transit to put in twelve-hour days working under Thuet. He’s the first to go home, but it’s not that he isn’t dedicated-he has an 11 o’clock curfew.

The cameras caught every minute of the exhaustive training. "Forget teaching them how to carry a tray or the difference between veal and venison," says Zorich of her serving staff. "We had to start with basic social skills. How to stand, smile, make eye contact-the restaurant stuff came later." Their biggest project was 28-year-old Gerry. His rap sheet reads like a legal dictionary: aggravated assault, possession of cocaine, uttering death threats, DUIs, drug trafficking. He’s overdosed twice-and was once put in a body bag by paramedics. He’s the only server to wear long sleeves, hiding dark track marks that run up and down his "million dollar arms." ("’Cause that’s what they cost me.")

Gerry walked off the job three times but Zorich wouldn’t let him quit. She moved him out of the Downtown Eastside and into a shelter in North Vancouver. "She says I’m worth saving and she’s not willing to give up on me," Gerry smiles.

The show begins airing this month. And though the eight-episode run marks the end of Thuet and Zorich’s active involvement, the experiment lives on. The restaurant retains the same staff and they aim to make a go of it as a real restaurant. "We don’t know how long they’ll stay once we’re gone," says Thuet. "We’re just trying to give them real-world skills that will work not only here, but in any restaurant."

Melissa plans to stay. Her tableside recitations of Thuet signatures like onglet and clafoutis have become more natural. She grows oregano in her herb garden and brings it to the restaurant every day. "Working here is like winning the lottery," she says. She’s unsure how the restaurant will operate without the steadying influence of Thuet and Zorich, but she’s happy with her chances for a bright future. "When an addict sets their mind to something," she smiles, "all the power in the world can’t stop them." wl
*Pseudonyms have been used throughout.

*Recipes and images from French Food My Way by Marc Thuet, Copyright © Cineflix (Dinners) Inc., 2010. Photography: Paula Wilson. Reprinted by permission of Penguin Group (Canada), a division of pearson canada inc.