Maggie Beer could well be described as a doyenne of the Australian food scene, up there with Stephanie Alexander and the late Margaret Fulton. She’s not a trained chef, but a self-taught cook who became a restaurateur, food producer, media personality, and crusader for better food experiences for older people.

Born Margaret Ackerman in 1945, Beer grew up in Sydney, leaving school at 14 and working at various jobs in Australia and overseas. She met her husband, Colin Beer, while skiing, and they married in 1970. In 1974, they moved to the Barossa Valley to raise pheasants, an enterprise that flourished after Colin received a Churchill Fellowship in 1978 to study Game Bird Breeding in Europe and America.

Maggie’s food journey really began in 1979, when the Beers opened the Pheasant Farm Farmshop. On her website, she writes of the hard work involved:

 I made pates; pickled quails eggs that meant that every night with bucket after bucket of boiled eggs that needed peeling between my legs telling my daughters stories. I cooked the Pheasants Colin raised for the customers and carved them and served as if it were a take away, always wanting to show how delicious they were and give people the confidence to cook with them so they would buy the raw bird to take home. I roasted quail, stuffing them with currants, citrus and herbs and made terrines.  Anything I could make from what we were growing.

The farm shop began to attract attention and soon evolved into the Barossa Pheasant Farm Restaurant. Initially offering a set menu of farm produce for $7.50, the restaurant, open only for lunch from Wednesday through Sunday, pioneered the idea of a “country restaurant”. In 1989, Maggie Beer was described as “Australia’s only true regional chef”. Rita Erlich endorsed her expertise with all manner of game and Stephanie Alexander praised the game pâté, pheasant pie and quince crumble.

The restaurant flourished. In 1991, adding to its 1986 South Australian Tourism Award for Restaurant Excellence,  it was named the nation’s Restaurant of the Year by Australian Gourmet Traveller. But the hard work took its toll. In 1993, the Beers sold the restaurant. The next enterprise was a book, Maggie’s Farm. It was to be the first of many. This was followed, in 1996, by the establishment of an industrial kitchen in Tanunda, producing a range of products including pâté, quince paste, verjuice and duck egg pasta under the Maggie Beer brand. This business was eventually sold in 2019, but the brand continues and now covers homewares, hampers, sauces, condiments, oils, vinegars and even vodka.

Maggie Beer’s media career began with an ABC series, The Cook and the Chef, which was co-hosted with chef Simon Bryan and filmed in the Barossa Valley. The first episode aired in February 2006, and the series ran for four seasons.  Other television shows followed, including guest appearances on MasterChef. In 2014, the Maggie Beer Foundation was established with a mission “to provide the pleasure of a good food life for all, regardless of age or health restrictions.” This led to a 2024 television series that saw Beer working to improve the food offered in aged care facilities.

In addition to the awards for her restaurant, Maggie Beer has received many personal honours. She was named Senior Australian of the Year in 2010, and South Australian of the Year in 2011, as well as being awarded Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in 2022 for her distinguished service to aged welfare and to the tourism and hospitality industries as a cook, restaurateur, and author.