Stéphane Nguyen is the founder of the French Cooking Academy alongside his wife, Kate. Stephane has built a global following by teaching classic French techniques in a way that actually makes sense: clear, methodical, and with a real focus on understanding the why behind each step. But it didn’t start there. Stéphane moved to Australia, missed French food, tried to make a Boeuf Bourguignon and realised he actually had no idea how. So he taught himself, using proper French culinary textbooks, and documented the whole process. What started as a personal project is now a full-blown online cooking school with thousands of students from around the world. We talked about everything from confidence in the kitchen to why a sieve might be the most underrated tool you own. We talked about how the Academy came to be, what it means to build confidence in the kitchen, and why the simplest dishes are often the hardest to get right.