Simran Savlani, trained chef and cookbook author, created A Spark of Madness in a bid to expose Hong Kong to stories of fun Asian flavours and the power of vegetarianism
Born in Taiwan to Indian parents and raised in Hong Kong, Simran Savlani has neither endured a typical childhood nor a straightforward pathway to becoming a leading food figure in the region.
Simran’s landfall in the city came with an eight-year-long career in marketing and sales following studies overseas. Yet, after toiling away on calls, the food creator yearned to become embedded in the restaurant scene, after standing adjacent for nearly a decade.
“I had never wanted to work as a chef,” Simran admits in an interview with Foodie near Lan Kwai Fong. “I didn’t have the patience, acumen, nor skill, but I wanted to open restaurants.” The self-professed gourmand sought to align and embed herself deep within the food industry.
To rouse a fruitful career change, she joined Le Cordon Bleu Paris in 2015, the world’s largest hospitality school network, to study restaurant management. Upon her return to Hong Kong, Simran wanted to experience both the plight and success of opening up a restaurant, “to learn from someone else’s mistakes. I wanted to be a restaurateur.”
Simran joined the opening team of Soho House Mumbai, launching the property’s club, restaurant, and hotel, and worked as a restaurant consultant across two continents, opening restaurants in Lagos, Jakarta, Singapore, and Hong Kong.
If a world tour wasn’t enough, she ventured to open a Sichuanese restaurant in Mumbai with her newfound experience. However, moving to India’s finance capital in January 2020 coincided with the country’s tight pandemic shutdown, isolating Simran from the project.
When she managed a return to Hong Kong, A Spark of Madness was born during her hotel-room quarantine stay. Simran’s Asian and African culinary influences come clashing together with the line-up of edible and experiential products, the first being a sold-out cookbook.
“Only with my thoughts just by myself [in India], I convinced myself to start a collection of the recipes I had spent creating in the last six months to craft a black-and-white laminated manuscript,” she explains.
During the following nine months in Hong Kong, Simran was determined to craft a cookbook summarising the flavours that she has encountered and relished since her Paris studies. “It was a testing space,” she says, referring to her A Spark of Madness cookbook, which was released in the autumn of 2021 with 116 recipes.
In the cookbook, she scopes the flavours of Thailand, Malaysia, India, Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong. The photographs of the recipes were taken with an iPhone at her home and crowd-tested by 300 people across 40 countries. The central theme? Vegetarian Asian recipes.
Simran has not enjoyed a lick of meat in more than two decades, yet she is wise to not expound on the ideals of vegetarianism to the masses. “Generally, when you have a vegetarian product, you will find people screaming about the ‘V’ with a big positive sign.”
“I love saying everyone should eat what they want to eat, and even though all Spark condiments are vegan, they are not just designed for the meat free. It can be used for any dish and still spark your food.“
The vegetarian cookbook and subsequent products were an exercise for Simran to generate a focus for her A Spark of Madness brands and create tangible vegetarian food experiences in Hong Kong.
Her marketing canniness brought Simran to create her next Spark products: sauces. “How do I promote my cookbook? Everyone does umbrellas, tote bags, aprons, but who cares? I wanted to feed people, and I created sauces that would complement the recipes from the cookbook.” Three sauces came on the market – Caramelised Spring Onion, Crispy Chili Oil, and Crack Sauce – enjoying instant success.
Each sauce marries the spice, umami, and salt found in Asia, suiting flavours enjoyed by Hong Kongers through Cantonese dining. Simran’s spice vendors are local to Sheung Wan. “The sauces took off, and we are available now in Singapore and Dubai too. The plan is to take it overseas in Australia and North America to keep bringing these flavours from Hong Kong worldwide.”
A series of jams came next, provoking a local reaction that the age-old spread can be enjoyed beyond just toast and afternoon tea scones. “Why can’t we use [jams] for more? I had this idea of doing an alcoholic jam. Each jam uses a different alcohol, giving you warmth with roundness, mixed with spices and herbs.”
In an exercise to highlight the power of vegetarianism, the jams also score highly locally and regionally for disseminating Asian flavours via a funky, sweet medium. Pineapple jam brings together smoky tones of whisky, shichimi togarashi, and thyme. Pink guava is blended with gin, bird’s-eye chilli, and ginger, and peach is married with tequila, jalapeño, and hibiscus.
Hong Kong knew Simran from her cookbooks, sauces, jams, and an Asian-spiced honey product, but she wanted to make the Spark brand more relevant and interactive. The idea of hosting vegetarian food tours across Sheung Wan and Sai Ying Pun germinated in early 2023, inspiring her to host her first series of restaurant tours in those neighbourhoods in November and December last year.
“When I say vegetarian, we are not talking about strictly vegetarian restaurants, but restaurants that serve vegetarian options. I hate going to vegetarian restaurants, and I have been a vegetarian for 25 years! I hate vegetarians being pigeonholed to only eat mock meat, vegan meat, or broccoli.”
“Over the 20 different sessions we hosted, with 15 people each session, we brought the food tours across Sheung Wan to highlight vegetarian dishes that can be had across the neighbourhood. Sweet-and-sour vegetarian pork and salt-and-pepper fried eggplant at Sheung Wan Cooked Food Centre, mung-bean noodles with peanut sauce at a small Shanghainese restaurant, French toast at Cafe Mei, and banh mi at An Choi.”
Vegetarian dining, Simran argues, does not have to be scary. Her Sheung Wan series, hosted during the cooler months of the Hong Kong winter, was a hit, and she also plans to host a vegetarian food tour in Sham Shui Po.
Simran’s entrepreneurial mind continues to evolve and bear the fruits of another unique dining experience. During April and May of this year, she hosted over 300 people to enjoy an eight-course vegetarian Cantonese meal along with Spark sauces across six sampans tied together at the Causeway Bay Typhoon Shelter.
In a city obsessed with the latest restaurant opening, the experience brought together vegetarians and vegetable-loving Hong Kongers to explore the buzz of dining at sea on a multi-course meal under LED lights, relying on the strength of natural umami.
Simran intends to return with the sold-out food tours and sampan dining experience in the autumn, when Hong Kong welcomes a brief pause from the relentless summer heat.
From the cookbook, to the sauces and jams, to the international dinners, food tours, and sampan experience, Simran wants to bring the big “V” of vegetarianism down to a smaller “v”, welcoming Hong Kongers and other Asians to experience the power of vegetables without obsessing over where their meat has gone.
To buy A Spark of Madness food products, click here or to hear more about Simran’s latest vegetarian ventures, check out her Instagram.