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People say don’t shop when you’re hungry. I say come to Stevies Little Shop.

Chef Meg Stevenson’s cornucopian cafe and food store, set on a residential Carlton street corner, is a marvel of high-quality produce and home-cooked food. There, amid potted palms, festoon lights and plumes of pink, red and purple fabric flowers, are shelves, counters and fridges brimming with sweet and savoury goods selected and made by Stevenson.

First, Stevenson’s handpicked Australian and imported products; gourmet sauces, artisan relishes, providore salt, French butter biscuits, Italian pasta, Vermont maple syrup, freeze-dried fruit and brown paper packages of fermented black garlic.

But this is a mere prologue to Stevies Little Shop’s greater beauties. Fridges and chilled cabinets of Stevenson’s preprepared food. It’s hard not to look like a tourist stumbling across a spectacular waterfall or a 16th-century Renaissance painting, such is the fine food range in this small corner shop.

To the left, frozen tubs of beef curry; sticky beef stout stew; king prawn laksa; seafood marinara with pesto; sweet potato, ginger and peanut soup; and green Thai curry with basil, eggplant and prawns.

To the right, chilled jars of tuna dip; organic chicken and cognac pate; red lentil dahl; green olive and garlic hummus; black bean and corn fritters; roasted lemon chicken salad; and salmon chowder with leek, potatoes and corn.

More fridges hold avocados, cherry tomatoes, lemons, mushrooms, free-range eggs and packets of free-range meats.

It’s hard not to look like a tourist stumbling across a spectacular waterfall or a 16th-century Renaissance painting, such is the fine food range in this small corner shop.

It’s as if someone opened up their kitchen, all while cooking their greatest homemade food hits, and an army of fans came again and again to savour the beautifully judged flavours and ingredients.

On this sunny Saturday morning, just arrived regulars are nodding keenly to Stevenson, a chef and hospitality veteran who opened Stevies in 2020.

“Heart-starter?” she says, one arm manoeuvring vintage floral cups to the coffee machine, the other writing table orders for five-spice mushrooms with blue cheese silken cream.

A heart-starter is a double-shot coffee.

“We don’t charge for the second shot,” Stevenson says, now bagging a Stevies BLT (bacon, mayo, cherry tomatoes and spinach). “I think a neighbourhood coffee needs to be strong and of good quality because that’s how I drink it.”

She can tell a first-time customer instantly. “They’re standing still, staring at everything,” she says. “It can be a bit overwhelming, the first visit.”

Born in Melbourne and raised in Canberra, Stevenson’s love of cooking began as a two-year-old helping her father in the kitchen.

“My first set of stitches was from a peeler,” she says. “By 11, I was doing my parents’ dinner parties after doing all the canapes before that.”

She did the grocery shopping every week and created recipes for each night.

“I was never very academic,” she says. “But food and cooking, that’s what I had a passion for. It was something tangible that, at the end of the day, I could see I’d done.”

After gaining her apprenticeship in Canberra, Stevenson travelled to Europe the UK, Canada and the US where, across five years, she worked as a chef, ran a cafe and trained students.

Back in Australia, after working in hospitality and training culinary students, she founded catering company Stevensons Fine Foods.

In 2019 she leased the Carlton shop, revamping its interior and expanding her already strong customer base through lockdown.

“I was adamant it wouldn’t be a cafe,” she says. “I wanted it to be only grab-and-go. But it’s been an interesting evolution. Retail wasn’t gaining enough traction, so now it’s dine-in on weekends.”

Today, two counter benches and five plywood tables lining a dark pink banquette are packed. The breakfast menu’s bacon and egg roll, with marmalade, spinach, mayonnaise and smoky salt on a crunchy bun, is going down a treat at my, and four other, tables.

Between sips from good, strong La Marionette coffee served in a donated vintage mug, the folded eggs special, with spinach, roasted asparagus and smoked salmon, is excellent.

Little Stevies Shop is eye-widening, all-welcoming, with affordable prices and seasonal home-cooked fare from a chef I’d like at home.

“It’s like people being in my living room,” Stevenson says. “And them enjoying the food so they’ll come back again.”