Meet The Sisters Behind Salt Salon, Singapore’s Chicest New Supper Club

Sisters Sarah and Sonia Tan can be said to be the most fashionable foodie duo in Singapore that you’ve not seen or heard of yet. Sarah, 31, is behind the 11‐month‐old Substack newsletter Salt Salon, in which she ruminates on her love of food as much as her love of fashion (her sartorial obsessions include the 1980s icon Romeo Gigli and vintage Prada).

Meanwhile, Sonia, 29, has been documenting her sister’s adventures in the kitchen and dressing up through feel‐good, pop art‐esque photographs and illustrations on her under‐the‐radar Instagram accounts @cacio_e_bebe and @penne_n_paper respectively (yeah, she’s got a thing for pasta as well as a playful sense of humour).

Soon, these stylish siblings will be dishing out their good taste in a bold way. This month, they’ll officially launch a supper club series in Sarah’s home that’s also named Salt Salon, with Sarah behind the menu and Sonia on art direction. Both the name and concept were inspired by the salons popular in France during the 17th and 18th centuries, where cultural luminaries gathered to discuss anything from art to politics (DM Sarah on Instagram at @salt.salon.series to make bookings).

And next month, they’ll launch a series of self‐published cookbooks (pre‐orders are expected to launch on Sarah’s Instagram account early 2025). Their titles remain in the works at press time, but, as you might have already guessed, Sarah handles the recipes while Sonia’s in charge of bringing them to life visually.

It all makes for quite the culinary arc, considering how both women are self‐taught in their respective specialities. Up till recently, the older of the two was in logistics real estate while the other, advertising and branding. Before that, both spent eight years in New York, where they studied then worked in finance and business development respectively, after which they relocated back to Singapore in 2021.

Their time in the Big Apple was what fermented their love affair with food – from originally having to cook for themselves for the first time in their lives, they went on to regularly host convivial (and ultra‐chic) dinner parties for friends and family. Both Salt Salon the supper club series and their upcoming cookbooks can be said to be an extension of this core memory. Here, they share more about their not‐so‐conventional, fashion‐influenced and heartfelt approach to feeding others.

CONSIDERING THAT YOU STARTED COOKING SIMPLY AS A WAY TO FEED YOURSELVES, WHAT WOULD YOU SAY HAVE BEEN YOUR BIGGEST CULINARY INSPIRATIONS? 

Sarah: “I started cooking about 10 years ago, when I first moved to New York, primarily to feed my sister and myself. We don’t come from a family of home cooks, so I never really had the chance to watch over my mother’s or grandmother’s shoulders in the kitchen. Over time though, I started to take refuge in cooking and derived a lot of joy from hosting my friends. I think it’s a priceless gift to have all the ones you love at the dinner table, communing over food that you prepared with your own hands.

While in New York, we also had the fortune of forging a very life‐altering friendship with an older couple, Howard and Mirella, at an apple orchard upstate. They’ve become like family to us. Mirella, who moved to Manhattan from Rome in the 1980s, is a painter, but she’s also a genius in the kitchen because she’s able to create so much flavour from what seems like so little. She taught me how to cook with patience, heart and soul, and has been my biggest inspiration in the kitchen.”

Sonia: “At the end of the day, everyone has their own personal relationship with food. I’m someone who derives joy from simple pleasures and food happens to be one of the sources ... I’d say that I’m lucky that on top of sustenance, food has given me solace and joy at all stages of my life. Something as humble as a warm bowl of white rice is enough to make me feel a sense of comfort and I love that till today, it’s powerful enough to trigger a precious memory of, say, family dinner around the table as a kid – cue Ratatouille, the best movie about food!”

HOW IS THIS BACKGROUND GOING TO BE CHANNELLED INTO YOUR SUPPER CLUB SERIES SALT SALON? 

Sarah: “I decided to name the series after my Substack column Salt Salon – ‘Salon’ because I want it to be a space where conversations, ideas and exchanges are always influx, emulating the salons (American writer) Gertrude Stein used to host in Paris in the early 1900s, with luminaries such as Picasso and Hemingway in attendance. Lofty aspirations, I know, but what better way to pay homage?

Now, I don’t like to be pigeonholed into a particular type of cuisine – though I do love making Korean, Italian and Mediterranean food – so expect to see a variety of menus ... Most importantly, I’d like to take the stiffness and formality out of the private home‐dining experience. In my mind, Salt Salon is more about finding, fostering and gathering like‐minded individuals around a dinner table, and the food I make is just one pillar of the experience. My favourite moment of any meal is the sobremesa – a Spanish term used to describe the post‐meal linger at the table, indulging in conversation and the company of dinner mates. Some of the best conversations I’ve had were at a dinner table and I want to maintain this kind of intimacy.” 

Sonia: “We’d like more emphasis on the act of gathering around a dinner table – that idea of a communal experience. At the end of the day, we want people to leave feeling like they had a good night and a supper club sounds more inviting, casual and comfortable than a private home‐dining experience.”

WHAT INSPIRES YOUR FOOD, SARAH?

Sarah: “I love travelling. And since I’m always busying myself in the kitchen, food and flavour have become, in a way, prisms through which I dissect foreign cultures. A deep interest in Korean cuisine, craft and art even pushed me to learn the language some years ago when I was trying to make specific regional banchan (side dishes) that I found in a Korean cookbook.

I don’t have a favourite dish, but I love when I’m able to create something unexpected with what I have in the fridge. Recently, I made a geotjeori (fresh, not fermented) Napa cabbage kimchi that I tossed with ripe, jammy persimmons. I’m all about stretching leftovers, and think there is beauty to this sort of restraint and resourcefulness in fashioning something new out of what’s existing.”

Sonia: “My favourite memories of Sarah’s food has to be when it was just the two of us cooking in our little apartment in New York back in 2020. We had self‐quarantined for most of the year and the kitchen became our wonderland. In that time, she went on the biggest, most ambitious culinary adventures, making a varied spread of dim sum from scratch, or whipping up a whole roster of 10 Korean side dishes all while working her Wall Street nine‐to‐five. Her cooking then meant an extra lot to me – it was all I looked forward to amidst the very depressing air in Covid‐19‐stricken New York and was what got me through that really trying period.”

NOW, SONIA, YOU CLEARLY LOVE FOOD EVEN THOUGH SARAH DOES MOST OF THE COOKING, AND IT’S THE MAIN SUBJECT OF YOUR PHOTOGRAPHY AND ILLUSTRATIONS. TELL US MORE ABOUT HOW THIS PRACTICE CAME ABOUT. 

Sonia: “I’ve always loved using food as a subject and main character – it’s like how cakes were a common centrepiece of American painter Wayne Thiebaud’s works or the school of Dutch still life paintings. My illustrations carry a very different personality from my photography, so it’s fun to be able to express my love of food in two different visual languages. I’d say, though, that most of my food journey is documented via photography and videography. Photography has always been the most intuitive form of expression for me. I love documenting people in motion, whether it’s out on the streets, at home, or whatever.

With cooking, I feel there’s an exceptionally beautiful rhythm to the way hands move in the kitchen. It’s like watching choreography. And since watching Sarah cook became a part of my everyday rhythm, it became something I naturally wanted to document on a regular basis ... I love photographing people in the kitchen and their food, and Sarah has a way of plating a very humble and simple dish that makes me want to immortalise it as if it were a piece of art or still life ... And as her younger sister, I love documenting her because I can see how much being in the kitchen anchors her and makes her an even more loving person. I can tell that she loves cooking for others and nourishing them with good food even more than she loves doing it for herself ... You can say she’s one of my muses: She’s a very constant subject – whether it’s her gastronomic creations, her outfits or just Sarah in her element.”

WERE YOU TRAINED IN ART, SONIA?

Sonia: “Everything about me is completely antithetical to what I studied in college, which was accounting. I’ve always loved and admired drawings and paintings done by others, but for some reason never sought it as a hobby beyond doodling when I was growing up. I’m not trained in illustration or any kind of fine art. In fact, sketching was something I picked up on a whim a few years ago while visiting Kettle’s Yard gallery and museum in Cambridge in the UK. I randomly bought a notebook and pencil from the gift shop, and sat myself down for a cup of coffee. There and then, I found myself in front of a very simple and rustic arrangement of flowers in a vase that I had a sudden urge to draw.

I always seek out museums when I travel, but for some reason, I was particularly inspired after that visit to Kettle’s Yard. Anyhow, that was the beginning of my journey of drawing and illustration, and I shuffle between drawing with pencil, pastels or acrylic on paper, and iPad illustrations. It has been a hobby for a while now and I set up the Instagram account @penne_n_paper this March to document most of my drawing escapades. I had set it up to be a diary of my drawings and the following is very modest (98 followers at press time), but it has led to some commissions for individuals and small businesses in Singapore, New York and Seoul.”

IT’S EVIDENT FROM SARAH’S FOOD AND SONIA’S VISUALS THAT YOU BOTH HAVE A KEEN EYE FOR ART, FASHION AND DESIGN. TELL US MORE ABOUT YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH THESE FIELDS.

Sarah: “They’ve always been a very organic part of my life. Our father’s an architect, and he exposed us to many aesthetic and cultural facets. He often brought us to bookshops, where he’d spend the better part of the afternoon poring through design and architectural publications for inspiration, and I just watched him from afar, not knowing it would influence my siblings and I in a similar way. I’ve also always loved dressing up – that to me was a way of self‐expression even as a child. Our maternal grandmother was another huge inspiration. She was an interior designer by training, but later focused on being a homemaker to take care of her three children. She however never stopped creating, decorating and designing – she was a remarkable recreational seamstress, and one of her traditions was to make my sister and me a nightgown for every one of our birthdays. I still wear them today. She showed me that art and beauty can be found in the quotidian moments of everyday living. And that’s what I want people to realise too.” 

Sonia: “In 2017, I saw an exhibition titled Georgia O’Keeffe: Living Modern at the Brooklyn Museum. It changed my perspective on what living a beautiful life meant. Her famous paintings were on show, but merely as a supporting cast. What took centre stage was her fashion and everyday wardrobe, which was made up of simple sets of monotone, shapeless clothing that she sewed with her own hands. The pieces were very simple and honestly looked almost Amish, but you could tell with one look that they were designed for comfort and timelessness. There was a phrase repeated throughout the show: ‘to fill space in a beautiful way’ – a quote O’Keeffe had inherited from her teacher Arthur Wesley Dow, and it was evident she lived by those words. It’s a phrase that really moved me and has since coloured the way I want to ‘show up’ every day ... It made me realise that there is beauty in routine, modularity and most importantly, intention. And it’s a principle that can very much be applied to every aspect of life.”

HOW IMPORTANT ARE AESTHETICS IN F&B TODAY?

Sarah: “I acknowledge that as visual creatures, we first consume with our eyes and with that, having distinctively sharp and attractive branding helps more than it hurts. It completes the holistic experience of dining out. But it’s not a make‐or‐break for me personally. In fact, some of the best hole‐in‐the‐wall trattorie I’ve been to in Italy didn’t even have signboards. Above everything else, I prioritise flavour and ambience. And it’s a bonus if the owners have cultivated some sort of conviviality. It’s these factors that compel me to revisit a place.”

Sonia: “Stylish branding is definitely not a priority for me. I think that the businesses that thrive are the ones built on strong and clear intentions. And with F&B, it’s about sharing food that’s unknown or creating an experience that one can’t get eating at home. One of my favourite restaurants in New York, Mala Project, has been thriving since it was founded in the East Village in 2016. When we were still in New York, my sister and I visited it repeatedly because it has an all‐round casual, warm and inviting ambience ... The servers remember their regular customers, for example, and we eventually became great friends with them. It’s a very warm and sincere dynamic, and this human connection was what made me want to return. It shows a strong brand promise that’s not reliant simply on marketing collateral to convert customers and in fact trickled down to how staff members are trained to make customers feel at home ... At the end of the day, branding or marketing should be an extension of a brand’s core intention. Businesses should start from there instead of working backwards and thinking about how to create a ‘stylish’ brand.”

NOW TELL US MORE ABOUT YOUR UPCOMING COOKBOOK SERIES, WHICH WE EXPECT TO BE A FEAST FOR ALL SENSES.

Sonia: “A cookbook has always been the dream collaboration for us sisters. It perfectly marries both of our creative expressions: cooking for Sarah and food photography for me. We’ve both always loved to collect cookbooks and photo books in general, so we thought it’d be nice to have one that was created by us. The books will consist of recipes created by Sarah along with many photos of the cooking process and the final results, shot by me. There’ll also be some illustrations, but the main images will be photos, as I feel like they’re the most appropriate visual guide for our audiences to refer to when cooking.”

Sarah: “Our cookbook series is for the everyday home chef who sometimes can’t decide what he or she wants to make. The recipes are fuss‐free, simple and don’t call for many ingredients – the likes of soups, for example, because I love to drink soup. They’re like a warm hug at any meal and I tend to make a large batch of soup at the weekends to last me through weekday lunches.”

THIS INTERVIEW HAS BEEN EDITED FOR BREVITY AND CLARITY.

This article first appeared in the December 2024 Food Edition of FEMALE