avatar image
Advertisement
PostMag
Life.Culture.Discovery.

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

Reading Time:2 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
0
A stint in Hong Kong hotel quarantine led Simran Savlani to write her cookbook, A Spark of Madness - also the name of the handmade sauce business she went on to open. Photo: Jonathan Wong

“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.

“Most people have had something taken away from them during Covid, and it’s always seen in a negative light, but I put a positive spin on it and decided I’d write a cookbook,” says Taiwan-born, Hong Kong-based Savlani, who set up her business, A Spark of Madness, in 2021, selling handmade-in-Hong Kong sauces.
 

“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.

After many years with the Post, Kylie Knott found her calling on the culture and lifestyle desk. She writes about the environment, animal welfare, food and the arts.
Advertisement