Mise en place is a way of thinking.

I started washing pots at seventeen because I needed the money and stayed because a head chef caught me tasting the staff meal and said 'you've got a palate — don't waste it'. Sixteen years, three countries and two kitchen openings later, that one sentence is why I teach: because the right word at the right moment makes a cook.

I've run à la carte service for two hundred covers and I've walked a shaking eighteen-year-old through their first solo section on a Saturday night. Both need the same thing — a calm voice and a system you can trust. My students leave knowing not just recipes but how to think like a chef when the tickets pile up.

If your culinary school or kitchen wants an instructor who has actually done the job at a high level and can teach it without the ego that usually comes attached, my whites are pressed and my knives are sharp. Put me on your hardest service or your greenest class — I'm happy either side of the pass.