Free meal, no starter, central course (not starter) (7)
I believe the answer is:
unchain
'free' is the definition.
(unchaining is a kind of freeing)
'not starter' is the wordplay.
'not' becomes 'un' (prefix meaning 'not').
'starter' becomes 'chain' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'un'+'chain'='UNCHAIN'
'meal no starter central course' acts as a link.
I am not very happy about this link. Some or all of it may belong to another bit of the clue.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for unchain that I've seen before include "loose" , "Release from fetters" , "Free" , "Release from bondage" .)