When we hear Sebastian Simon is down for the Bengaluru edition of gourmet food festival World on a Plate (WOAP), our salt taste buds wake up. Simon, who has chefs and enthusiasts globally going gaga over his smoke salt infusions, noticed, as an executive chef at a Melbourne restaurant, that customers would order steak but they never translated into repeat customers.

"One day I changed the seasoning a bit, and cold smoked the salt used in the steak with hickory. Out of 24 customers who ordered a steak that day, seven asked me what I had done differently. I told them I infused my salt with hickory wood chips, which had caused the massive shift in the seasoning," he says.