Doing porridge? It's roast turkey and trimmings in Holloway

Elaborate Christmas menus, royal wedding-themed dishes and chocolate Easter eggs are among the treats served to London prisoners.

Menus obtained by the Evening Standard from seven of the capital's prisons reveal that inmates are enjoying restaurant-standard meals.

Goat's cheese and vegetable tartlet, rich butter croissants with jam, home-made steak and mushroom pie, Moroccan fish stew and quiche lorraine are all on offer. Puddings such as black forest gateau and vanilla ice-cream are also served daily.

Prison chefs draw up carefully coded menus each day indicating healthy, halal, vegetarian and vegan options, catering for prisoners with different religious beliefs and dietary requirements.

Holloway prison was among the most luxurious. On Christmas day, inmates were served roast turkey, stuffing, pigs in blankets and all the trimmings, followed by Christmas pudding with custard and mince pies. "Royal Wills and Kate marble cake and custard" was on the menu the day of the royal wedding.

Belmarsh prison offered kippers for breakfast on Christmas Day and its Isis young offender wing gave each of its inmates a hot cross bun and Cadbury's crème egg on Easter Sunday. Brixton prisoners have "healthy eating days" and Feltham prison provides a key for each meal, breaking them into low, medium and high fat content for inmates on a diet.

These menus contrast with prisons elsewhere in the country. The Hindley young offender institute in Manchester served a salad roll and instant soup on Easter Sunday.

The average cost of food per prisoner per day in Britain including breakfast, lunch and dinner has risen by 10 per cent since 2008 to £2.20. This means that feeding the country's prisoners costs more than £5million more a year than it did three years ago.

Emma Boon from the Taxpayers Alliance, said that the public may wonder why the Government is spending more on prison food when it is cutting back elsewhere.

She said: "It won't go down well with taxpayers to see that inmates are being offered Christmas meals with all the trimmings, especially when many families are struggling with rising bills.

"We don't expect prisoners to eat gruel, but it is unfair that taxpayers are funding treats for inmates that they can't afford for themselves."

But a spokesman from the Ministry of Justice said that no additional funding was given for Christmas Day or other festivals and prisons are required to stay within budget.