Ahead of her talk at the Powerhouse Parramatta Opening festival, the 81-year-old cookbook author and presenter says she still has a lot on her plate
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It has been 20 years since the first episode of the Cook and the Chef aired in 2006, introducing Australian viewers to culinary odd couple Maggie Beer and Simon Bryant. Each episode the pair gently ribbed each other in Beer’s cottagecore kitchen in the Barossa Valley, then turned out dishes such as bruschetta, grilled kingfish and olive tapenade.
The show served up 154 episodes over four seasons – and who knows how many litres of verjuice. But there was a moment, in pre-production, when it seemed like the series wouldn’t get off the ground.
As Beer remembers it, their first trial in front of the camera was “hopeless”; they were riddled with nerves. But once the cameras were turned off, she and Bryant “sat on the steps afterwards and just talked and talked, and laughed and laughed, about how hopeless it had been”, and their executive producer could see their real-life chemistry. In the next few sessions on-set, their combined charisma and mutual love for cooking meant “we forgot the camera was there”, Beer says.
The show was offered the Wednesday primetime slot on ABC, which they turned down – “The best decision we ever made,” says Beer. The show’s earlier 6.30pm airtime meant they captured more young viewers, pre-bedtime.
Even now, the show’s legacy has endured among millennials and gen Z. At a recent concert – the Cat Empire with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, if you’re asking – Beer was approached by fans of the Cook and the Chef, many of them three generations her junior.
“I’m proud of the fact that I have the ability to share with people, to give them the confidence to cook and the joy that comes from cooking and sharing their table,” Beer says. “So much of that comes from those four years that Simon Bryant and I did the Cook and the Chef.”
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For Beer, the show was a success because she and Bryant were their authentic, one-take selves.
“He didn’t know what I was cooking and I didn’t know what he was cooking until he walked in the door. And so everything that happened was like this great conversation between friends who, different as we were in our cooking styles … came together in the end.
“If [we] made a mistake, what you saw is what you got … We didn’t repeat anything. And so it gave people the feeling that cooking was just having a blast.”
The final episode of Cook and the Chef aired in 2009, with spring rolls and baked ricotta on their farewell party menu. Beer and Bryant still stay in touch, though it’s hard to coordinate their schedules to catch up in real life. “But we’re in each other’s thoughts,” says Beer. “He’s got the biggest heart you’ve ever come across.”
Since the Cook and Chef years, Beer’s CV has grown to include more TV gigs, a slew of cookbooks, a Senior Australian of the Year award and advocacy work through her eponymous charity.
The Maggie Beer Foundation, established in 2014, advocates for improved food and wellbeing for aged care residents and runs free trainer-mentor programs and online learning modules for residence staff. As founder, Beer also gave evidence at the 2019 royal commission into aged care about how lifting meagre food budgets – some of which were as low as $7 a day per resident – to at least $10.50 would lift the standards of meals and nutrition at aged care homes.
Her testimony was moving and impassioned. But in 2025 a Sydney Morning Herald investigation raised questions about the foundation’s ability to improve food standards and health outcomes for aged care residents at scale.
When it comes to the foundation receiving taxpayer dollars, Beer says “scrutiny is what should happen”.
“It is really important, for accountability. Because we want [the foundation’s work] to continue, we want this to grow, so we want them to know just how successful we are.”
She points to regular, fortnightly meetings the foundation has with federal government representatives. An independent evaluation of the organisation’s work will be made public at the end of the year.
As for Beer’s own health and wellbeing, her aged-care advocacy has brought self-awareness and gratitude. In 2024, Beer sustained injuries after having a fall in her Barossa Valley home.
“It really was the worst thing that could have happened to me,” she says. But now her health, energy and fitness have all been restored, thanks in part to the outpouring of support she received from friends and fans in the aftermath: “I’m walking up hills!
“I believe in how wonderful it is to be my age and to be fit and connected and full of all the things that I love in life.” Outside the kitchen, she cites her garden, choir and family as sources of joy.
At 81, Beer still leads a multi-hyphenate professional life. Although she hints there may be a “slowing down” of her work on the horizon. Her husband, Colin – to whom she has been married for 56 years – has suggested a four-day work week as a starting point.
Yet, “it is seductive to keep working”, says Beer. “I am driven by the fact that there is so much that can be done.
“I’m a very determined person. And I have so much to do. And I love what I do.”
And she still, of course, loves verjuice. “ I can’t cook without verjuice or extra-virgin olive oil or great salt and pepper,” says Beer. “They’re my core.”
Maggie Beer appears in conversation with Julie Gibbs at Powerhouse Parramatta in Sydney on 10 November at 10.30am.
