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

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.

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