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Eilish Maloney, founder and owner of a zero-waste food co-operative called the What If Society, is sweeping the floor five minutes before closing at her Moss Vale cafe, the Studio. “Well timed,” she says, smiling. “We’ve got a few things left.”

She walks to a wedge of cake, eight dark cocoa balls and a section of herringbone-patterned bread-and-butter pudding loaf. Seven hours earlier, the Studio, a small olive building on a residential street, was filled with food and people.

Counters, the kitchen, a fridge and food cabinets offered croissants, glazed twists, vanilla doughnuts, triple-choc brownies and curry beef pies. There were sesame-and-brown butter biscuits, artichoke-and-hazelnut muffins, beer can chicken sandwiches, sticky fig glazed pastry pockets and a spinach-and-cream cheese sponge.

There was also the Trust the Chef table menu, which offers five dishes, cryptically titled and defined by size: The One that Everyone Talks About ($16); Small But Mighty ($17); Meet Me in the Middle ($24); Whole Lotta Love ($27); and Just Feed Me ($40).

Each is what Maloney and her team, which includes Kathryn Macfie and Sofia Wilson, create depending on season, imagination and what food producers connected to the What If Society bring. Trust the chef.

In the past few months (I have visited four times), these plates have included organic turmeric and beef sausages with curry sauce and house sourdough; crumbed frittata with fermented leek, burnt tomato and anchovy; and chicken schnitzel with mustard mushrooms and fermented chilli and tomato.

All are tongue-wowingly brilliant. All are eaten by enraptured customers, of every age, at mismatched wooden tables (one from Maloney’s family), from breakfast to lunch. And now, all of them – from the table menu offerings to the counter goods – are gone. No waste here.

The What If Society’s second home, The Exchange in Burrawang, which is a shopfront cafe with bigger kitchens behind it, is where everything is baked, fermented, bottled, preserved and prepped before being brought to The Studio’s counter and kitchen.

It is also where Maloney applies her butchering skills, breaking down whole carcasses for use across the menu.

“Would you like me to warm up the bread-and-butter pudding?” she asks, while spooning fluffy cream into a cup. “Spread this on it afterwards. Beautiful.”

Maloney’s passion for food came in year 9 at Chevalier College in Burradoo.

“I thought, ‘Oh this makes sense,’” she says. “It felt, not easy but like I was destined to do this within my life.”

After year 10, Maloney got her apprenticeship, began working with chef and mentor Jacqui Challinor at Nomad in Sydney, then travelled, aged 20, to London.

In 2015, she worked at a Michelin-starred London restaurant called the Ledbury with Brett Graham, then she went on to stints in Sweden, South Africa and the United States.

She returned to Australia in 2017 and became head chef at Saint Peter with Josh Niland, in Paddington. In 2022, she founded The What If Society in the Southern Highlands.

“I’ve always lived by the quote, ‘Be the change you want to see in the world’,” Maloney says. “And food has the power to change your life. It can take you back to a moment in time, a memory or an emotion. When we need it to be our fuel – to feel and think and for all our motor skills – why wouldn’t we create a really beautiful circle around that.”

Maloney works with local producers, including Carrington Meats, Rockaway Farm, Robertson Potatoes, Red Leaf Farm, Moonacres Farm, Musset Holdings and Little Big Dairy Co. She runs special food events, cooking classes (for adults and children), supper clubs and bread and vegetable box subscriptions.

At the Studio, shelves hold house-made sourdough loaves, bottles of mead and banana vinegar, jars of fermented onion and garlic, ham glaze, pickled rhubarb, chilli and carrots, onion jam, sauerkraut and dried lemon and orange slices. Pats of paper-wrapped honeycomb butter in the fridge are magnificent.

Moving fast, talking deeply with customers, cooking and preparing brilliant food with a gusto that makes her magnetic, Maloney is a star. “I can never say I know everything about food,” she says.

“Which means I can never get bored. I will be forever on a journey of evolution and discovery. And I love learning.”