Quarantine spawned a cookbook, washouts bred dining pop-ups, and she launched a handmade sauce business in Hong Kong mid-pandemic – Simran Savlani has been busy
- In 2020, Simran Savlani was ready to open her own restaurant. Then Covid-19 struck, she found herself stuck in India for six months and thought of a cookbook
- Hong Kong hotel quarantine gave her a chance to start writing it, before she launched a business selling handmade sauces with the pandemic still raging
“Pivoting” became a buzzword during the pandemic as people altered course to adapt to the constantly changing conditions. Simran Savlani took it to new levels.
In 2020, after years in the food industry – opening restaurants across Asia and Africa – the restaurant management graduate of Le Cordon Bleu Paris was ready to open her own establishment.
Then Covid-19 struck, and she found herself stuck in India for six months under some of the strictest lockdown measures in the world. She got proactive.
“I never had plans or a desire to be a cookbook author – in fact, I’m notorious for not following recipes – I like to freestyle,” says Savlani, an ethnic Indian. “But it was a way to manoeuvre around closures so I started my cookbook during my first hotel quarantine in Hong Kong, in October 2020.”
A Spark of Madness is a tasty collection of 116 recipes that blend vegetarian and vegan Asian staples. But her pivoting didn’t stop there.